Netflix May Have Lied to Investors and The Public

‘You’ is higher rated than ‘The Office?’ Tell me you’re joking

In 2005, The Office premiered on NBC with a critically panned pilot and a moderately successful first season. It wasn’t long however until The Office grew from the latest in a long line of British comedy rip-off’s, into a ratings juggernaut for the network.

Fast forward to 2019 and six years after airing its finale; The Office has blossomed into the most-watched TV show on Netflix. Although if you check the data released by Netflix itself, The Office pales when compared to the IP generated by the streaming giant.

No Data

Netflix has always held a policy of not releasing its viewing data. Instead, they claim to make Top 10 lists based on how often a show is streamed by a household during the 28 days following its release.

In addition to the lists they curate in-house, Netflix has recently started releasing the ratings for a few select in-house shows including Stranger Things and You.

Luckily for us, we don’t have to rely on Netflix for our viewership data. We have Neilson.

The Neilson Family

Neilson is a data analyst company that has been the trusted supplier of TV ratings for decades. Traditionally they collect their data from ‘Neilson Families.’ These families are households who have agreed to instal dongles on their TV’s that track viewing data. This data goes on to influence consumer habits, and has a large impact in informing content creators on what works and where networks should be headed. Neilson used their network of families to track Netflix viewing habits independently, and ended up with decidedly different results.

Fudging the Numbers

Neilson came back with data that didn’t reflect the numbers that Netflix had reported to investors, numbers that led us to believe that Netflix Originals were the most-watched shows on the streaming platform.

The ratings Neilson found and told The Washington Post were nothing surprising, because they’re the shows people have spent years growing to love. They confirmed that ratings superstars, including The Office, Friends, and Greys Anatomy were leading the pack. According to Neilson, the highest rated Netflix original show is ‘Orange is the New Black’ which appears in 7th place. Appearing higher than Orange are - The Office Friends Greys Anatomy NCIS Criminal Minds Shameless

If Netflix is to be believed, the viewership numbers Neilson gives The Office are dwarfed by that of their own shows.

Netflix reported the following numbers for its top three original shows -

Stranger Things — 64 million streams The Umbrella Academy — 45 million streams You — 40 million streams

These numbers are astronomical, too high to even remotely be believed. Disney subsidiary FX has access to Neilson data, and pointed out that these numbers are ridiculous.

According to The New York Times, FX CEO John Landgraf revealed that ‘You’ could expect to reach an audience of 8 million viewers if it were aired on national television. Of Netflix’ numbers he said:

An average audience of eight million viewers is good, but it’s not an average audience of 40 million total viewers, which would make ‘You’ the number one show on American television.

What does it all mean?

A judgement could be made that Netflix is indeed fudging the numbers, and if they are, there’s nothing we can do to stop them.

It’s in Netflix’ best interest to do so, especially since marketing false numbers that can’t be proved as such could be seen as good marketing.

But it also means that we should start taking their “data” with a grain of salt. Since they’ve always refused to release hard numbers and instead only give us samples of data, we should’ve suspected that they’d try to use our ignorance against us.

The Neilson numbers don’t just look bad; they must be scary as hell to Netflix. UniversalNBC is about to launch Peacock, their own streaming service. To this service they’re going to add The Office, taking it away from Netflix. Although Friends is an NBC show, it has instead found a new home on the higher priced streaming service HBO Max.

CBS has CBS All Access which would have licence to NCIS, Criminal Minds and Shameless. And who knows, Disney (who owns ABC) could easily take Greys Anatomy for themselves and place it on either Disney+ or Hulu (which they now own outright).

The Future of Netflix

Netflix will lose its two biggest shows within a year, and the rest of the real ratings-slayers may be next. If Netflix were to glorify shows that were only going to migrate to a different network, they’d risk spending marketing dollars promoting a rival service.

Stacking the list with home-made shows guarantees that people are being recommended shows that Netflix can guarantee will be sticking around for the long term. Ranking their own shows higher could also be enough to convince investors that they’re able to create television that’s better than shows like The Office and Friends.

It’s easy to see why they’ve done it, but it also means we have to disbelieve anything they say regarding their own programming in future lists.

Lesson Learned

This experience gives us all a good lesson worth learning.

If a network isn’t willing to provide its real ratings and hard data, then it’s not interested in sharing the real honest truth. If they’re not willing to share the truth, they must have something to hide and an agenda to meet.

What we should be wondering is where the lie gets them, and what they stand to lose by revealing the truth. Companies don’t do anything by accident, and the longer they operate, the more careful they become. Netflix is clearly taking the upcoming streaming wars seriously, and who knows who’s blood will be spilled first.

So with that, please allow me to provide my Top 10 list of Most-Read Literature available on the internet. (Real numbers will not be provided, trust is assumed and would be appreciated. Don’t ask questions, and don’t believe anyone that questions this information. Once again, hard data will not be provided).

The Uncertain Future of Apple — written by me The Bible Harry Potter series The Lord of the Rings The Alchemist The Da Vinci Code Gone With The Wind Those Twilight Books Think and Grow Rich The Diary of Anne Frank

I have no ulterior motives, so trust me. There’s only money on the line.