Yesterday, I speculated that Netflix had a weak summer for content, and until the end of December, this may have caused its usage to slip. This was driven by the Nielsen weekly data, which hit a peak in March and in the middle of November. Yet, I can’t show that since I don’t actually have Netflix’s monthly usage data.
But other firms’ data can act as a proxy. Like Reelgood, a company that helps users find their favorite shows and films. (In full disclosure, Reelgood provides me their data on a regular basis.) Two of their charts, in particular, stuck out to me, both in their “quarterly streaming” reports. What I did was combine them into one. And voila, my visual of the week:
And here it is in table form:
Some quick thoughts/insights:
– Reelgood claims 2 million users, but doesn’t clarify the demographic breakdown of those users. (It’s a question on my to-do list to ask.) So that could skew these results. Though, by no means, does it skew them enough that I won’t use their data.
– Also, given how their platform operates, I wouldn’t be surprised if it skews “adults” since kids more often just turn on a given streamer and watch the same shows. So this probably doesn’t capture all usage.
– That said, their usage for Netflix is within the margin of error for Nielsen’s Q2 results, which had it at 34%. Comscore has shown similar numbers too.
– As such, that decline feels bad! Or, to use biz jargon, “sub-optimal”. I don’t think Netflix is really achieving the same usage as Prime Video, but clearly they didn’t gain in Q3 and Q4 usage.
– Disney being flat with The Mandalorian is also a sign that they need a stream of hits to drive usage up across the board.
– This is also another data point that the Wonder Woman 1984 experiment worked to drive usage up.
