The most-watched Netflix shows: Why you should be skeptical

In a shareholder letter last week, Netflix touted some recent programming wins. The irresistible temptation is to compare these figures to Nielsen ratings, which would make “Stranger Things,” with its audience of 64 million, just about the most popular scripted show on TV since the finale of “Friends.” Yes, Netflix is sharing more information about how many people are watching its shows than it did just a year ago, and we now have a broad sense of which shows and movies are especially popular with its subscribers. The numbers shed virtually no light on how many people, on average, are watching hundreds of other shows on the service, from critical darlings like “Russian Doll” to oddball cult favorites like the recently canceled “The OA.” Netflix only shares viewership information about originals, not about the many very popular shows in its back catalog. Especially as it faces a whole bunch of competitors, the company probably doesn’t want to advertise the enduring popularity of licensed titles that will soon be going to rival streaming services, like “The Office” and “Friends.” Unlike old-fashioned linear networks, which have to rely on the far-from-perfect Nielsen ratings system — a guesstimate based on a narrow sample audience — Netflix has access to an arguably alarming amount of data about what subscribers are watching. As digital rights expert Michael Veale revealed this year, Netflix even tracked the choices made by viewers who watched the interactive film “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.” So when a company that has a borderline unsettling amount of information shares vague numbers that sound good but are presented in a contextual vacuum, we should all practice some healthy skepticism.