One of the biggest points of contention in the recent strikes has been the issue of streaming residuals and a demand for greater transparency over streaming service viewership numbers.
Recently, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that part of the reason they are careful about releasing viewership data, even to the show and film creators themselves, is because of what he says were concerns from the talent regarding ratings and box office performance.
Speaking as part of a pre-recorded interview that went live this week in the wake of Netflix’s third-quarter financial results, Sarandos said:
“It was part of our promise with creators. 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.
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.
That said, he is aware that with time people are becoming “much more interested in this” and numbers do help steer people towards certain content:
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 adds that streaming’s most valuable metric these days is one of engagement. Sarandos was one of the key CEOs in the final WGA negotiations with the AMPTP and is back in the mix with SAG-AFTRA. He says they have prioritized these negotiations “above everything else we’re doing”.
Source: Variety
