The Irishman had 26,404,081 views in the first week, says Netflix – cough, wink, cough

~ Todd Russell
Netflix says The Irishman had over 26 million views — but what does that mean?

Netflix is notoriously mum on viewing stats.

We just don’t know.

Well, er, a lot of the time, we don’t, unless we’re told by Netflix.

But we now have the numbers — from their official twitter account tweet, not a third party auditing service — that The Irishman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ had over 26 million views in the the first 7 days. Further down in a tweet response they define a “view” as at least 70% of the film watched.

That number is of course open to wide interpretation since we don’t know how many people were watching said stream at the same time. We also don’t know how many are rewatches vs. first time views. But a view is a view is a view, right?

All things considered, 26 million is a lot of eyeballs. The film deserves them.

At a budget of $159 million that breaks down to, using simple math, a whopping $6.02 per subscriber.

So far that is what Netflix needs PER subscriber in subscription fees to pay for the break even budget for just this one movie. They have dozens of new shows in December 2019 alone.

Safe to say Netflix is deep in the red on this investment. That’s no secret. It’s well publicized that they are betting it all on original content. Go original or go broke … or maybe a little of both in the end.

Of course The Irishman will continue to have views long after the first 7 days. They won’t continue at the pace of the first seven days most likely, but it’s reasonable to hypothetically assume a 40% drop off week 2, 3, and then 20% to 10%. Here’s how that would look:

  1. 26,000,000 – first 7 days
  2. 15,600,000 – 14 days
  3. 6,240,000 – 21 days
  4. 1,248,000 – 28 days

HYPOTHETICAL TOTAL VIEWS: = 49,088,000

Don’t like my numbers? Hey, just create your own. I promise you can’t possibly be wrong in the world of tweet it and it’s believable.

Purely hypothetical, and probably more views after 28 days than this, but who knows what the real numbers will be. Netflix can claim any number they want and, guess what, we don’t know.

These streaming channels need third party independent auditing of statistics to actually mean more than just what somebody puts on their official Twitter feed. I’m not saying it’s BS — and this post is intentionally loaded with snark — but also not saying I believe it. Only one thing about this news is certain:

We don’t know what this means.

Published by Todd Russell

I love reading, writing and watching scary, atmospheric horror and thrillers.

8 thoughts on “The Irishman had 26,404,081 views in the first week, says Netflix – cough, wink, cough”

  1. I could give you an accurate statistic; that my blog gets a million viewers a year. But that would be based on selective data; ie picking the busiest hour (500 views), multiplying it by 24, then 7, then 12. Netflix’s selective numbers mean nothing but puff, but the Neilsen ratings for the Irishman indicate that of the 2.6 million US viewers on day one, the number who completed the film was roughly 20 percent. Yes, they might finish it another day, but that’s tv, not cinema.

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    Reply

      1. It’s PR not insight from Netflix. Besides, if I went to the flicks to see a film and a third of the audience weren’t there at the end, I doubt I’d be dusting off my ‘best film of the year’ accolade!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Honestly haven’t been to many movies — even the bad ones — where people have got up, left, and never came back. The vast majority of movies we see in theaters are mostly empty. But we don’t go at times where crowds are there. The busiest we’ve seen theaters at off times (matinees, days) have been at the dinner and a theater Cinebarre’s. Those seem to draw better crowds in the off-peak hours. Even JOKER on opening day, the very first showing was maybe 40% full at best. I’m curious how full Star Wars will be on opening days. Will there be lines? Haven’t seen those in awhile.

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      4. What are they telling you? I think more and more people are staying home. I’ve had a couple different conversations with people on Twitter with moviegoers who believe the at home streaming experience is superior to watching a movie in the theater. Maybe The Irishman which is (too) long that might work, but the vast majority of movies I prefer to see on the big screen, with at least some people in the theater. Definitely do not care much for the very first row, looking up at the screen lol. Those seats are not good at all.

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  2. Pingback: 2 minutes watched now counts you as a "viewer" in Netflix's stats – Movies, Movies, Movies

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