Netflix Trend Insight in 2020
Technology changes have affected our lives in a way that now we can easily stream what we want to watch in the comfort of our bed or couch. With streaming, we now can watch movies or shows anywhere and anytime, supported by the availability of mobile apps.
During the surge of COVID-19 everywhere, people were urged to stay at home to reduce the risk of being infected. With this direction from the government, there was more time at home than usual and this led to more time spent on TV/entertainment streaming. Netflix, one of the movie & TV show streaming giants, had reported in April 2020 that they had doubled the new number of subscribers. In the UK, people doubled the time spent on subscription streaming services.
Reflecting on the surging amount of new customers and more time spent in streaming, the question that may come to our mind was, how was the trend in Netflix streaming in 2020? Here are some insights extracted about Netflix trends worldwide in 2020.
Prologue — Introduction of The Dataset
This data set was taken from flixpatrol.com. This website has recorded the ranking/charts of several movie streaming apps such as Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and so on. My favorite thing from this site is that they provide the streaming trend of each app in a lot of countries and serve them both daily and weekly.
According to the Netflix site, the streaming service has been available everywhere in the world but these four countries: Syria, North Korea, China, and Crimea. For this analysis, based on the source of the data, not all countries are included in the data set because of the availability of the data. Included countries can be referred to as the map above.
This data set only contains trends in 2020 and starts from around Week 12 or 13, but not all include countries started from this week. Nevertheless, all data ended in Week 37 (7–13 September 2020). Referring to the same map above, most of the included countries have more than 20 weeks of available charts/data.
For clearance of this analysis, this data set only provides the list of #1 Movies and TV Shows in every included country weekly. So, the analysis below also explains the trends in #1 Movies and TV Shows on Netflix.
Netflix Original Shows — How Popular are Them?
Netflix is also popular with its exclusive content, which is known as Netflix Original shows. It can be seen that from the map above, in most of the countries, more than 50% of the #1 shows are Netflix Original. Countries that have less portion of Netflix original shows mostly come from South America and Asia. This can be inferred that the exclusive content of Netflix was sought a lot in the app and raised attention/interest in multiple countries.
Genres — What are You Watching for?
Different places, different tastes. Nevertheless, we can see that there is some common taste shared among the countries in the same region. U.S & Canada mostly watched Comedy shows, and so did most of the countries in Europe. In most of Asia Pacific and Latin America countries, Drama has been the most popular genre. In South Asia and the Middle East, most of #1 shows are of Action/Superhero genres. ‘Mixed’ genre here denotes that from the limited existing data, this country has the same number of unique shows for each genre.
If wanting to be exact, what is the most happening genre in #1 shows on Netflix? Based on the pie chart below, Drama has been the most common genre in #1 Netflix shows, followed by Comedy.
Top Movies in Netflix Around The World
For this part, each week, I extracted which movies have been number 1 in more than 50% of the included countries. So, here are those shows that were popular worldwide.
‘The Old Guard’ has topped 91.67% of the countries and received great ratings in both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. Even though ‘Extraction’ has topped the chart in 92% of the included countries, it only received ratings around 70% in both ratings. Despite being the #1 in around 75% of the countries, his movie received great ratings in IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, after ‘The Old Guard’.
Generally, most of these popular movies are Netflix Original, except ‘365 Days’. These movies are also receiving fair scores generally in the IMDB rating.
Top TV Shows in Netflix Around The World
This part is similar to the previous part, but for TV shows.
‘Lucifer’ has been #1 in 82% of the countries on Week 35, while also received great ratings from both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes (> 80%). ‘Money Heist’ follows a similar pattern, by becoming #1 in more than 70% of the countries and receiving >80% ratings, also from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
While ‘Too Hot to Handle’ has been #1 in 82% of the countries, unfortunately, it received a worse rating (around 40%). The opposite happened to ‘Never Have I Ever’. While being #1 in 62% of countries, the ratings are high, especially in Rotten Tomatoes (98%).
Origin Countries — Which Country Did Create The Most Shows?
Most of the #1 Movies and TV Shows still came from the USA, while second place each for movie and TV Show is respectively from Turkey and South Korea.
Korean Wave — When, Where, and What Korean TV Shows Have Been #1?
Korean entertainment has been attracting and receiving attention worldwide nowadays, with no exception to Korean Dramas (K-Dramas). In 2020 (according to this data set), there have been 10 K-Drama titles becoming #1 both in Korea and abroad.
‘It’s Okay to Not Be Okay’ has become the #1 for 12 weeks, starting from Week 26. This drama aired from 20 June (Week 25) until 9 August 2020 (Week 32). It means that this drama became #1 in multiple countries in the same period while it was airing on Korean TV. The same pattern also happened with ‘The King: Eternal Monarch’.
There are a few K-Drama titles that were still popular, even after it ended airing on Korean TV. ‘Crash Landing on You’ was popular in Japan a few months after it finished airing. ‘The World of The Married’ also was still popular in a few Southeast Asian countries for the last two weeks.
