Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Defends Not Disclosing Streaming Numbers: Creators Felt ‘Trapped’ by Ratings, Box Office

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos says that “part “of the reason the streamer has long been tight-lipped about viewership data — even when it came to disclosing numbers to those creating the TV shows and films for the platform — is because of the talent’s own concerns about feeling “pretty trapped” by ratings and box office performance. “At the time we started creating original programming, our creators felt like they were pretty trapped in this kind of overnight ratings world and weekend box office world defining their success and failures,” Sarandos said during a prerecorded analyst interview that went live Wednesday, following Netflix’s report on its third-quarter financial results. “And as we all know, a show might have enormous success down the road and it wasn’t captured in that opening box office.

So part of this was the relationship with talent, not just the business aspects of it. And I do think that, over time, people are much more interested in this.

We’re on the continuum today of, how much data do we publish? I think we’ve been leading the charge starting everyone down the path of a Top 10, publishing our Top 10 list and our annual wrap up list and everything to give a lot of transparency to the viewing.

And I just expect will be more and more transparent.” Sarandos’s comments come amid the ongoing actors strike, in which a key sticking point between SAG-AFTRA and the Hollywood studios has been increased streaming viewership transparency, and just a few weeks after the Sept.