What We’ve Learned from the Netflix Nielsen Viewing Stats

Arguably, Cobra Kai and Lucifer are each almost as popular as The Boys, and Netflix then had Umbrella Academy. You can see this by looking at 7 Park’s summer rankings (Memorial Day to Labor Day) of top series and films.

Google Trends Cobra Kai

Netflix can take a show and increase its buzz/popularity about four times. That’s the power of the “Netflix Effect”. Though, having a show that is good in the first place helps. And based on still memorable IP from the 1980s.

Netflix Still Doesn’t Own Most of Its Most Popular Content

The other trend in the data is that the majority of viewership on Netflix is still coming from shows that they don’t fully own. While Netflix labels many things “originals”, they are actually produced by the traditional studios. Those big shows I mentioned above? Lucifer, Umbrella Academy and Cobra Kai? They’re produced by Warner Bros, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures respectively.

Here’s the Nielsen total viewing weekly top ten lists from the start of August to the third week of September.

Google Trends

Even though The Boys had a higher peak, by week four it had dropped off the Nielsen weekly measurement charts. Meanwhile, The Boys actually grew in interest due to strong word of mouth. We saw the same thing last year with Game of Thrones and Stranger Things.

Google Trends GoT vs ST

Indeed, for the first time this spring, Netflix experimented with some installment releases for its reality competition Love is Blind. But for scripted series, they’ve gone back to the binge well.

Listen, Netflix is the king of streaming, so I’m hesitant to call their strategy wrong. Well, I’m not hesitant about it. But they should really consider making their tentpoles bigger and longer events.

(The Entertainment Strategy Guy writes under this pseudonym at his eponymous website. A former exec at a streaming company, he prefers writing to sending emails/attending meetings, so he launched his own website. Sign up for his newsletter at Substack for regular thoughts and analysis on the business, strategy and economics of the media and entertainment industry.)