In a press release published on Netflix’s blog earlier today, the streaming service debuted its “binge scale”—an indicator of which shows are binge-watched the most. The two extremes on the scale are series that are “devoured” (watched for more than two hours a day) and “savored” (watched for fewer than two hours daily).
The most devoured shows include series like Bates Motel, Breaking Bad, The Fall, The Following, The Killing, American Horror Story, and The Walking Dead. ‘Savored’ shows include comedies like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, BoJack Horseman, and Love; political dramas like House of Cards or The West Wing; and crime dramas like Bloodline or Fargo.
To create the scale, Netflix included data only from accounts that completed the first season of a show, and looked overall at 100 serialized TV series across more than 190 countries between October 2015 and May 2016. The global median time needed to complete the first season of these series was five days, and completers of a show spent on average 2 hours and 10 minutes a day watching it—any less, and they were considered to have ‘savored’ a show.
Netflix famously and controversially does not release conventional ratings (although in some exceptional instances they have discussed the relative success of some of their original titles), so this might be the closest we ever come to knowing what users’ viewing habits look like. However, this scale obviously doesn’t indicate which of these shows are viewed the most, just which shows completers are more likely to binge.
And according to Netflix, different viewing paces are all part of their plan: “It’s no surprise that complex narratives, like that of House of Cards and Bloodline, are indulged at an unhurried pace. Nor that viewers take care to appreciate the details of dramas set in bygone eras, like Peaky Blinders and Mad Men. Maybe less obvious are irreverent comedies like BoJack Horseman, Love and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. But the societal commentary that powers their densely layered comedy paired with characters that are as flawed as they are entertaining allow them to be savored.”
(via Jezebel, images via Netflix)
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