Netflix Introducing New Top 10 Row

Since Netflix first got into the original programming game many fans and members of the press have found it hard to trust the streaming service when they self report the success of their films and shows. Now Netflix is trying to get ahead of that by debuting a new feature that will roll out today for its users, an official Top 10 feature. This new row will be visible to users around the world and will feature its own unique design, showing off the 10 most popular pieces of content on Netflix in the user’s country in addition to separate lists for the Top 10 most popular movies and the Top 10 most popular shows. The lists will be updated daily.

In addition, any shows that make either of the “Top 10” lists will be given a special badge that sits in the corner of the preview art, so if they appear elsewhere on Netflix as viewers are browsing they’ll see that it’s on the Top 10 list for the day.

“We’re constantly looking for ways to make Netflix better,” Cameron Johnson, Product Innovation at Netflix said in a blog post. “It’s why we’ve been experimenting with top 10 lists in Mexico and the UK for the last six plus months. Members in both countries have found them useful, so we are now rolling them out to even more. When you watch a great movie or TV show, you share it with family and friends, or talk about it at work, so other people can enjoy it too. We hope these top 10 lists will help create more of these shared moments, while also helping all of us find something to watch more quickly and easily.”

This new feature will no doubt back-up Netflix’s viewership numbers when they decide to release them. Recently the streaming service announced that the first season of The Witcher was on track to become its biggest season one TV series ever, with over 76 million households tuning into watch Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia slay some monsters in its first month of release.

One thing to keep in mind though is that Netflix has reclassified what they consider to be a “view” on their platform. In the past Netflix has said that they considered something to have been “viewed” when users watched 70% of any piece of content, and now they’ve moved to a system wherein when a household/account watches just two minutes of any given title it will count as a view. The two minute marker stems from what they claim means the choice to watch something was intentional, as viewers would opt out quickly if they hadn’t actively picked something to watch on purpose.

In the event that Netflix is updating the new “Top 10” feature on their system based on their own metrics, it may not be an accurate portrayal of what viewers are watching since they only need to watch a small portion of it for a view to count.