Netflix is solving its engagement problem by … spending less time talking about engagement
Netflix is reducing the frequency of its viewership data releases from twice a year to once annually. The company aims to shift investor focus away from specific show performance and toward primary financial metrics like revenue and operating profit.
Why it matters
This move signals a broader trend of streaming platforms restricting transparency regarding audience engagement to manage Wall Street expectations.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is walking away from the company's practice of releasing viewer data twice a year. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Wall Street is concerned that Netflix subscribers are spending less time with Netflix shows and movies. Netflix says investors shouldn't worry. But Netflix is also going to provide less viewership data than it has before. Will that please Wall Street? Wall Street worries that Netflix has a problem with engagement — an issue you can see in the audience numbers the streaming giant periodically releases. No problem, says Netflix: It will deal with that problem by … releasing audience numbers less often. Netflix says it is going to stop putting out its "What We Watched" report — a voluminous data dump that details viewership for thousands of individual shows and movies — twice a year, as it has been doing since December 2023, and just did Thursday .
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