Why do Top 10 Lists on Streaming Services Matter to Customers, Content Creators?

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? If so, Netflix should be feeling pretty good about itself these days. Netflix was the first streaming service to offer top 10 lists to show users which titles were getting the most attention from their fellow subscribers; now, Max and Hulu have both gotten in on the game.

Max released its first top 10 lists in August, with separate lists for movies and TV series. Max’s list only counts recent releases in its list, and Max calculates a view as any individual account that watches a title for two minutes or more.

Hulu first came out with its top 15 list in mid-September, and it varies somewhat from Max’s. For one thing, it lumps movies and series together; for another, Hulu’s entire library is eligible to appear on the list, not just recent releases.

Such lists provide streaming customers with a way to find new shows and movies to stream when their current favorite runs out of new episodes. Content discovery is a big issue for streaming services; a recent survey found that the average customer spends more than 10 minutes trying to find something to watch, and that all too often a user will simply give up and turn off their TV rather than continue browsing endlessly.

The lists are a potential boon for providers too, as they allow content curators to put a new series or movie front-and-center. Users are more likely to watch a title they think is already popular, so if there’s a way to display it prominently on a top 10 or top 15 list, so much the better.

But these lists could be helpful in another way: helping to end the writer and actor strikes that have ground Hollywood productions to a halt over the summer. Analysis from the Los Angeles Times suggests that top 10 lists could be used to give writers and actors the data transparency they’ve been seeking from producers in order to calculate streaming residual checks. Perhaps the Writers Guild of America (WGA) could work out a bonus system for writers whose shows appear on the top 10 lists and stay there, for example.

Top 10 lists don’t give users total access to a streamer’s raw data, but they do allow for easier content discovery and the promotion of new titles. Only Netflix, Hulu, and Max offer them for now, but more streaming services could get in on the action if top 10 lists lead to demonstrably greater engagement.