Netflix Updates Viewership Metric to Focus on Households That “Choose” To Watch a Show

In prior periods, Netflix reported the number of viewer households that has watched at least 70% of a certain show. The company shared that they are changing the way they report viewer households to reflect those that “chose to watch and did watch at least two minutes” of a show.

The company says that the new metric will better reflect viewership of different lengths of content — from short episodes to long films — and interactive content going forward. With the new metric, Netflix says that on average the new metric is about 35% higher than it was previously. A show like Our Planet saw 45 million member households under the new way of tracking members households compared to 34 million under the previous metric.

With that being said, the company continues to see big worldwide viewership of shows. For instance, the second season of “You” (under the new metric) saw 54 million member households choose to watch the show in the first four weeks. The Witcher had the biggest first season ever for the streamer with 76 million member households in the first four weeks.

In terms of features, the Michael Bay film 6 Underground starring Ryan Reynolds saw 83 million households choose to watch the film in the first four weeks. The Santa Claus origin story, Klaus, saw 40 million member households choose to watch the film in the first 28 days.