Netflix recently unveiled a new top-10 portal for showing off the viewership stats for its biggest draws. This site is an important step in its journey towards transparency around its numbers.
And as per the numbers in the top10Netflix.com, two Indian films feature in the top-10 global list of non-English films for the week between November 8 and 14.
The two Indian offerings to make the global list are the Netflix original Hindi movie Meenakshi Sundareshwar and the Tamil film Doctor that already had a theatrical release.
The list is based on the number of hours viewed on Netflix. To be precise, it is the total number of hours that Netflix members around the world watched each title from Monday to Sunday of the previous week.
The two films has had viewership from (apart from India) Bahrain, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Malaysia, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates. All countries, not surprisingly, with a strong Indian diaspora.
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Indian filmmakers need to up their game for OTT appeal
Giving out specific numbers, Netflix said Meenkashi Sundareshwar had 4.41 million hours of view time while the Tamil flick Doctor had 1.43 millions hours of view time globally.
The long distance relationship drama of a young Tamil couple Meenakshi Sundareshwar was 4th in the list while the kidnap story told in a whacky comical way Doctor was at the 10th spot.
Apart from the global list, Netflix also puts out country-specific numbers. And interestingly in the top-10 films list (in all languages including English) for India, the American action comedy Red Notice occupies the number one slot.
As it happens, only 4 Indian offerings are there in the India-specific list. And that would be Meenakshi Sundareshwar, Doctor, Doctor (Telugu version) and the Telugu flick Maha Samudram. So basically we have only 3 Indian movies in the Indian list.
That foreign movies have better numbers on Netflix India is a revealing stat. It also conveys the point that Indian filmmakers need to up their game when it comes to appealing to the sensibilities of OTT watchers. The usual masala formulaic stories no longer hold any fancy for the OTT viewers.
And it is precisely for such insights that Netflix has come up with its new numbers site.
“We think engagement as measured by hours viewed is a slightly better indicator of the overall success of our titles and member satisfaction,” Netflix bosses said in a recent letter to shareholders. “It also matches how outside services measure TV viewing and gives proper credit to re-watching.”
For the record, users already can see on their home screen a row of 'Top 10' titles in their own region, which is all about pushing you towards content the algorithm expects you'll like.
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