by Thinus Ferreira
After releasing its third-quarter results on Wednesday night,
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos promised that the video streaming service is
working on greater ratings transparency.
Netflix has refused to make specific viewership data available for
its content – an approach which was then adopted by other streaming services
like Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and MultiChoice's Showmax that touts
"record-breaking viewership" in press releases for the debut of shows
without supplying the industry or media with any actual numbers or verified
metrics.
In Netflix's usual pre-recorded earnings call and analysts'
interview which once again followed the publication of its Q3 results, Ted
Sarandos claimed that producers and talent feel "pretty trapped" by
ratings information.
However, much greater insight and release of ratings and
viewership data is one of the big sticking and negotiation points in the
protracted actors' strike in America, with the actors' union SAG-AFTRA demanding
greater viewership and ratings clarity from streamers since the information influences
residual payments to artists.
"It was part of our promise with creators at the time we
started creating original programming – our creators felt like they were pretty
trapped in this kind of overnight ratings world and weekend box office world
defining their success and failures," he explained on Wednesday night.
"And as we all know, a show might have enormous success
down the road and it wasn't captured in that opening box office. So part of
this was the relationship with talent – not just the business aspects of it.
And I do think that, over time, people are much more interested in this."
"We're on the continuum today of, how much data do we
publish? I think we've been leading the charge, starting everyone down the path
of a Top 10, publishing our Top 10 list and our annual wrap-up list and
everything to give a lot of transparency to the viewing and I just expect will
be more and more transparent."
Ted Sarandos said "At the
beginning, we thought there was a hard kind of apples-and-oranges comparison
between ratings and streaming. I think we've gotten to a place where it's
mostly based on engagement and it does measure the value of watching".
"Things
will become much more transparent the way that TV has always had ratings and
music has always had Billboard and theatrical has always had box office. So,
it'll be much more common."
