Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for June 18th, 2023. This week we’ve got a lot to cover, including the debuts of Black Mirror and Extraction 2 plus, we’ll also be looking at the major change Netflix has made with its top 10s.
Every Tuesday, Netflix updates its top 10 stats page with 40 new hourly figures of the top movies and shows of the past seven days.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from June 12th, 2023 to June 18th, 2023, we’ll use “Complete Viewings Equivalent,” or CVE, expressed in millions. That is the same metric used now by Netflix in its Top 10 following the June 2023 update in methodology. It allows for better comparisons between films and series, but it’s not an audience metric. It is the minimum number of viewings if they were all complete from the first second to the last of the film or season.
A methodology shocker: Netflix changes the way it shares its top 10.
That was yesterday’s big reveal and shocker: Netflix decided to do what all the analysts (us included) have done since the first Top 10 in hours viewed, that is to say, divide those numbers by its runtime to get a more comprehensive look at what is actually watched on Netflix.
We call this metric “CVE”; they call it “views,” and it validates what we’ve been trying to do in these Netflix reports: try and compare what can be compared on the best scale possible. We will continue to do so, as this shift in methodology will probably give us more numbers on Netflix Original programs than before, so stay tuned!
This applies to the numbers we get from Netflix and the daily top 10 charts, which have shifted dramatically in recent days.
Here's how Netflix describes the change: pic.twitter.com/kifjHfYVmp
— Kasey Moore (@kasey__moore) June 20, 2023
Extraction 2 is one of the biggest hits of the year so far
Action sequel Extraction 2 had to punch hard for its opening weekend, and it did just that with 42.8M CVes over its first three days.
That’s quite similar to the launches of Netflix’s two biggest films of 2023 so far (Murder Mystery 2 and The Mother, which launched with 42.9M CVEs). That’s a fantastic launch and as revealed during TUDUM, a third installment is in the works.
Extraction 2 CVE Viewership
Season 6 of “Black Mirror” does an OK launch.
With 11.3M CVEs over its first four days, season 6 of Black Mirror does an OK launch, not a great one, but that’s understandable due to the concept of this anthology series that is not really bingeable. Episodes are long and quite gloomy, so I expect the series to have good legs next weeks as subscribers continue to discover the episodes one at a time.
Black Mirror Season 6 vs other Netflix shows first four days
Amy Schumer benefits from the change in methodology
In the olden days of the Top 10, 2 million hours viewed would not be enough to be part of the Top 10. But for a special of just 50 minutes, that’s now enough under the new rules as Amy Schumer: Emergency Control launched with 2.4M CVEs over its first six days. That’s a lot less than the other special in my dataset, “The Closer” by Dave Chappelle, which opened with 12M CVEs.
FUBAR and XO, Kitty have been renewed, here’s why
Last week, we learned that FUBAR and XO, Kitty were renewed for a second season, and as we’ve been writing, it makes total sense when looking at the data. They were two of the three most-watched new US series 2023 per our 14-day estimates.
Renewed shows of 2023 – first 14 days CVE chart
Now, viewership is not the only thing at play here, as we can see with the (quiet) renewal of Unstable, but in the case of FUBAR and especially XO, Kitty, it was more than enough to warrant a swift renewal.
Netflix Synopsis: "Twisted tales run wild in this mind-bending anthology series that reveals humanity's worst traits, greatest innovations and more."
