Research Firm Reveals Unofficial Netflix Original Show Ratings

By 04/30/2015
Research Firm Reveals Unofficial Netflix Original Show Ratings

The silence around Netflix’s viewership ratings has finally been broken, but not by the streaming platform. San Diego’s Luth Research managed to reveal some of Netflix’s most popular recent shows by surveying a portion of the service’s subscribers.

Variety, who originally broke the story, reports that Luth sampled 2,500 Netflix subscribers’ viewing habits using its ZQ Intelligence technology, which can extract encrypted data from Netflix apps. The tool allows Luth to gather audience demographic information on a per-episode basis. The research firm tracked numbers over the first 30 days of Netflix’s recently-launched shows.

Luth’s results confirm the suspicions of those familiar with Netflix’s slate of popular original programming. Debuting on February 27, House of Cards managed to attract 6.5% of Netflix subscribers who watched at least one episode within the first 30 days of release. Luth found House of Cards was the most binge-watched show in all of March 2015, with almost half of all sampled subscribers watching at least three episodes in one day within the first 30 days.

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Daredevil, which debuted on April 10, bested House of Cards with a 10.7% attraction rate in only its first 11 days on the streaming platform. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt beat out House of Cards, too, with 7.3% of subscribers watching at least one episode in the first 30 days. Bloodline finished in last place with a 2.4% attraction rate.

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With these numbers, an approximate audience size can be determined. Variety notes that with Netflix’s 40.9 million U.S.-based subscribers, Daredevil’s 10.7% attraction rate calculates to almost 4.4 million users who tuned in to at least one episode of the series within the first 11 days. Using the same subscriber count, the 6.5% House of Cards rate would equal about 2.7 million viewers in the first 30 days.

Luth’s findings have a massive drawback (besides the obviously limited sample size). Luth’s ZQ tool only pulled data from Netflix subscribers streaming on computers, tablets, and smartphones. Subscribers using connected TVs and Netflix-app-supported devices like gaming consoles weren’t included. This means the viewing habits from Netflix subscribers who use connected TVs and related devices are missing, and could skew Luth’s results dramatically.

At some point, Luth could partner with Nielsen, who is planning to track Netflix viewing habits on TV-related devices. But even then, Nielsen won’t be able to track Netflix-owned shows, just those of other companies and TV networks streamed on the platform. And Luth would have to hope Netflix wouldn’t block its ZQ tool like it did with Procera Networks when that firm tried to track the viewing habits of House of Cards.

Netflix declined to comment on Luth’s data. This isn’t surprising, as the streaming platform is notorious for keeping the ratings of its original TV shows under wraps. Back in December 2014, Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos told audiences at UBS Global Media and Communications Conference his streaming company sees no reason to focus on viewership metrics when other more important factors are involved (such as quality of content). Sarandos later reiterated this stance by saying there’s “no real business reason” for Netflix to release viewing data.

However, many content producers don’t seem to care about Netflix’s lack of ratings data, as is evidenced by the platform’s recent deals with Leonardo DiCaprio for documentary releases and with Ellen DeGeneres for the upcoming Green Eggs and Ham adaptation. Additionally, Netflix only continues to pull in more consumers. The streaming platform recently reported positive subscriber growth during Q1 2015. So far, Netflix’s refusal to share ratings doesn’t seem to be hurting the company in the least.

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