Netflix reveals top shows of 2023 in first ever report into viewership data

Netflix has released its first ever biannual report into how its original and licenced TV shows performed on the platform – and there are some surprising programs towards the top of the list.

The new report, titled “What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report”, covers more than 18,000 titles and nearly 100 billion hours viewed between a six-month period from January and June this year. Content is only included if it has been watched for more than 50,000 hours.

According to the filing, the most-watched TV show during this period was The Night Agent Season 1, an action thriller based on the book of the same. The US series stars Gabriel Basso as FBI Agent Peter Sutherland who works in the basement of the White House manning a phone that never rings. One night when it finally does, Sutherland gets caught up in a conspiracy. 

The season clocked up a massive 812.1 million hours of viewership.
 

In second place was Ginny & Georgia, a comedy-drama that follows 30-year-old, free-spirited mum Georgia, her 15-year-old daughter Ginny and 9-year-old son Austin as they move to a rich town in Massachusetts for a fresh start. This show was streamed for more than 665 million hours. 
 

Rounding up the top three is the first season of the South Korean thriller The Glory. This psychological thriller follows Dong-eun (played by Song Hye-kyo), who survives horrific abuse by high school bullies and then spends decades plotting her revenge. 

The Glory came in with 622 million hours of viewership.
 

Worldwide hit Wednesday, starring Jenna Ortega, ranked in fourth place. In its first 19 days since being released in November 2022, the series saw one billion hours of viewership. 

However, given the show premiered late last year, most viewers would have finished the series by the time it was January 2023, when the Netflix report began.

Wednesday clocked up another half a billion hours from January to June. 
 

Streaming platforms have long been criticised for not releasing data, and this data visibility issue was a talking point in negotiations during the recent Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes in Hollywood. 

Although Netflix has been more transparent than other streamers when it comes to sharing numbers via lists such as Top 10 and Most Popular since 2021, Netflix co – chief executive Ted Sarandos said they needed to do more to make viewership information public. 

“In the earliest days, it really wasn’t really in our interest to be that transparent because we were building a new business and we also needed room to learn but we also didn’t want to provide road maps to future competitors,” Sarandos said in a call with reporters, as per Vulture. 

“The unintended consequence of not having more transparent data about our engagement was it created an atmosphere of mistrust over time with producers and creators and the press about what was happening on Netflix,” Sarados said. “So we’ve been on this continuum of opening things up.”