Netflix

Netflix has expanded its measurement deal with Nielsen. Under the terms of the deal, Netflix will now subscribe to Nielsen’s national TV content measurement and streaming TV data services.

After debuting in the No. 4 position last week, Harry & Meghan has risen to second place on Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings with the debut of its second set of three episodes. The series was watched for 1.7 billion minutes during the Dec. 12-18 viewing window, during which its final episodes were available for four days. This marks an increase of 34% in viewership from the Dec. 5-11 viewing window, which included the first four days of availability of the first three episodes.

The newest entrant to TV’s Upfront Week has little to do with traditional TV. Just as companies like Walt Disney, NBCUniversal and Fox try to tempt Madison Avenue with previews of new programming in hopes of wooing billions in ad cash, so too will Netflix. The streaming giant plans to hold its own upfront presentation in New York’s Paris Theater — which it owns — on May 17, smack dab in the middle of a stretch of days during which TV’s biggest players make pitches of their own.

The Wednesday craze continues. During the Nov. 28-Dec. 4 viewing window, the popular Netflix series recorded 5.3 billion minutes viewed in its first complete week of availability, breaking another Nielsen streaming record. There have only been seven times that a program has crossed the 5 billion threshold and Wednesday is the fourth program to do so.

After just 10 days on Netflix, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery has entered Netflix’s Most Popular English Films list at No. 3, behind only Red Notice and Don’t Look Up. In its second week atop the Netflix Top 10, the Knives Out sequel from writer-director Rian Johnson has amassed 127.25 million hours viewed on the English Films list. Premiering on the streamer Dec. 23, 2022, the critically acclaimed follow-up has entered the Most Popular list at 209.4 million hours viewed.

Netflix stock was on the rise more than 6% Thursday morning, following a double upgrade from “Sell” to “Buy” courtesy of analyst firm CFRA, which shifted its target price for the stock from $225 to $310 per share.

Netflix has issued estimates for the 2023 compensation of its top executives, with Co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos set to take home $34.65 million and $40 million, respectively. The forecast by the board of director’s compensation committee, disclosed Friday in an SEC filing, is in line with 2022. Hastings will receive $650,000 in base salary and stock options worth $34 million. Sarandos will get a salary of $3 million, options worth another $20 million and a bonus targeted at $17 million.

The end of password sharing is coming to Netflix soon—and it will be a challenge for both viewers and the streaming giant. More than 100 million Netflix viewers now watch the service using passwords they borrow — often from family members or friends, the company says. Netflix has said that it will put an end to that arrangement starting in 2023, asking people who share accounts to pay to do so. The company expects to begin rolling out the change in the U.S. early in the year.

The subscription video streaming company will pay $55 million for a 292-acre site on the former Fort Monmouth military base in Eatontown and Oceanport. Netflix plans an additional $848 million worth of investments in 12 sound stages and for other uses related to the film industry.

Netflix’s Wednesday made its debut on Nielsen’s U.S. ranking of streaming originals with the Top 10 chart’s second-largest tally ever. For the Week of Nov. 21, the Addams Family offshoot amassed just shy of 6 billion minutes viewed across a mere eight episodes, a total only bested by the 7.2 billion minutes that Stranger Things 4 drew this past Memorial Day weekend (for 32 available episodes).

The streaming giant’s ad-backed plan accounted for only 9% of new signups in the U.S. in November, according to subscription-analytics firm Antenna.

Netflix is falling short of ad-supported viewership guarantees made to advertisers and allowing advertisers to take their money back for ads that have yet to run, according to five agency executives. The specific shortfall amounts vary by advertiser, but in some cases, Netflix has only delivered roughly 80% of the expected audience, said the executives.

For the week of Nov. 7, Netflix’s Manifest amassed 2.3 billion viewing minutes across 52 total episodes, up 67% week-to-week. With the release of its fifth season, Netflix’s The Crown tallied a hair over 2.1 billion minutes across 50 total episodes, to place a close second.

Netflix’s Co-CEO and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos says its new advertising option will likely expand down the road. “It’s likely there’ll be multiple ad tiers over time, but nothing to talk about yet,” he said speaking during a UBS investor event. “And the product itself will evolve. I suspect pretty dramatically, but slowly and gradually.”

Despite reports Netflix is looking to acquire the streaming rights to several live sports leagues, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the streamer is not interested in bidding on sports rights right now.

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has now crossed 1B hours viewed in its first 60 days on Netflix, becoming just the third series to do so after Squid Game and Stranger Things 4. Ryan Murphy‘s serial killer series spent seven weeks on the Netflix Global Top 10, making the list in 92 countries. It is currently Netflix’s second most popular English-language TV shows of all time, just behind Stranger Things 4. Squid Game remains the streamer’s most popular TV show of all time.

Never mind those weekly Nielsen program rankings showing that Netflix still dominates engagement, Prime has more subs, research company says.

The two outlets stand well ahead of their competitors in terms of time spent with original programming.

Netflix co-CEO and chairman Reed Hastings conceded that he wished the streamer had introduced an ad-supported plan years ago. Netflix’s reluctance to adopt advertising was “wrong” and that it was a mistake to not jump into the segment several years ago, said Hastings, speaking Wednesday at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York. But the company eventually came around to the idea, and Hastings called the rollout of Netflix with ads this fall a “good tactic, because we get to offer consumers lower prices.”

Netflix’s Wednesday scared up a big audience during its opening week. The supernatural-infused mystery series about the Addams daughter and her stint at Nevermore Academy amassed 341.23 million hours viewed since its Nov. 23 debut, marking a new record for the most hours viewed in a week for an English-language TV series on Netflix.

The eventual demise of its DVD-by-mail service has been inevitable since co-CEO Reed Hastings decided to spin it off from a then-nascent video streaming service in 2011. Back then, Hastings floated the idea of renaming the service as Qwikster — a bungled idea that was so widely ridiculed that it was satirized on Saturday Night Live. It finally settled on its current, more prosaic handle, DVD.com. The operation is now based in non-descript office in Fremont, Calif., located about 20 miles from Netflix’s sleek campus in Los Gatos, Calif.

The company agreed to some exclusive theatrical distribution for Glass Onion and Matilda the Musical, but it’s not clear exhibitors will get much more.

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During an appearance on “On With Kara Swisher,” CNN’s chairman and CEO Chris Licht opened about who he sees as competition for the cable news channel, and it isn’t Fox News.

The tool lets you see who has been accessing your account, from what device, when, and from what location. It also lets you give them the boot.

Netflix next year will make its first foray into live events, disclosing plans to stream a new Chris Rock stand-up comedy special in early 2023. Rock’s special — the comedian’s second for Netflix — will be streamed as a massive global live event, the company said in a blog post.