THIS IS WHOLLY INDEPENDENT RESEARCH AND DATA. WE’RE NOT AFFILIATED WITH NETFLIX OR ANY OTHER STREAMING PLATFORM OR STUDIO.

Content

The dataset covers user behaviour on Netflix from users in the UK to opted-in to have their anonymized browsing activity tracked. It only includes desktop and laptop activity (which Netflix estimate is around 25% of global traffic) and is for a fixed window of time (January 2017 to June 2019, inclusive). It documents each time someone in our tracked panel in the UK clicked on a Netflix.com/watch URL for a movie.

'Duration' shows how long it was (in seconds) until that user clicked on another URL. A watch time of zero seconds means they visited the page but instantly clicked away.

Why this data matters

As more of the media economy takes place within restricted private networks, filmmakers and creators are becoming further removed from what audiences want. Without feedback, creators struggle to make commercial projects. Without reliable financial estimates, business plans become fanciful. Without data, we’re all just guessing.

As streaming continues to become an ever-larger window of release, it has drawn an impenetrable veil over a vital part of a film or TV show’s financial journey. This has created an artificial data drought. So much so that our clickstream dataset is currently the only global measure of VOD activity of its kind.

And it’s not perfect. There are limitations and caveats with the dataset which means that we are observing the truth through an imperfect lens. But in the absence of anything better, this is what we’re left to work with.

More on this here https://vodclickstream.com/why-this-matters/

Acknowledgements

We wouldn't be here without the help of others. If you owe any attributions or thanks, include them here along with any citations of past research. This is a community project aimed at helping content creators understand how the new world of streaming affects the demand for their works.

It has taken over a year and countless hours from many people for it to come together. It would not have been possible without the work of Stephen Follows, Dr. José Eliel Camargo-Molina, Jack Tann, Dr. Alejandro Celis, and Victoria Myerscough.

You can read more about our origin story at https://vodclickstream.com/our-origin-story/

Inspiration

We're really excited to see what people can use this data for. Our initial impetus or the project was to help filmmakers get the signals they need to know what to make, how much to spend, and their chances of commercial success. But it can reveal so much more than just that.

This initial dataset is just for movies and just for users in the UK. We also have data on TV shows and comedy specials, extending across all major countries. We will be releasing more soon. Get in touch if there’s data you’re after along these lines https://vodclickstream.com/contact/