Netflix reveals top 100 most watched shows data for first time ever

Netflix has revealed its most popular shows for the first half of the year.
Netflix has revealed its most popular shows for the first half of the year. Photo credit: Supplied

If you've been binging Ginny & Georgia or Love Is Blind, you are not alone.

Netflix has released its first-ever engagement report, providing more viewership data transparency than ever before.

Among the streaming platform's most popular shows are global hits, teen shows and female-fronted stories.

The FBI thriller The Night Agent, the first two seasons of Ginny & Georgia, Korean drama The Glory, Jenna Ortega's Wednesday, Bridgerton spinoff Queen Charlotte, the fourth season of Penn Badgley's You, the third season of Spanish telenovela La Reina del Sur, the third season of Outer Banks and Arnold Schwarzenegger's FUBAR rank as the ten most-viewed shows or movies on Netflix from January to June 2023, according to the streamer.

The top 100 – among more than 18,000 titles available on Netflix – includes the fourth season of Manifest, the second season of Firefly Lane, Jennifer Lopez's thriller The Mother, Eddie Murphy's You People, both seasons of the now-cancelled Sex/Life, reality shows including Perfect Match and the fourth season of Love Is Blind and award season breakouts The Diplomat and Beef.

Netflix has historically been highly selective about revealing audience viewing habits, highlighting high-performing content in "Top 10" lists or "Most Popular" lists in lieu of more robust consumption figures. The newly released data publicly discloses the least-watched shows and movies for the first time.

According to Netflix, non-English language programming like The Snow Girl (Spain), The Empress (Germany) and Fauda (Israel) comprised 30 percent of viewers' most-watched content. Original series and films accounted for 55 percent of viewing time, while 45 percent was licensed content – like Grey's Anatomy and Suits, both of which have found new audiences on the platform.

The first season of Suits, which originally aired for nine seasons on USA Network, ranked as the 67th most-viewed program on Netflix through June of this year – and that was before the show's buzzy summer resurgence.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos touted the success of Suits when unveiling the new engagement report on Tuesday during a press call with reporters, including CNN.

"What's interesting is a show like Suits, which has been played on USA for a long time, has been available on Peacock and has been available on Amazon for a couple of years before it hit Netflix," Sarandos said.

"And yet, we were able to unlock this enormous global audience for it, and that's the combination of our large subscriber base and our recommendation system that knew to put Suits in front of people who were going to love it the most."

Netflix aims to release viewer data on the second half of 2023 in the new year.

- CNN