Netflix To Stop Biannual Viewership Reports, Opting Instead For Yearly Data Dump Amid Scrutiny Over Audience Retention

After four years of biannual viewership reports, Netflix is pulling back a bit on the transparency front.

The streamer revealed Thursday that, beginning Q1 2027, it will only release one engagement report each year. In its earnings report, the company says this is part of its shift in focus to quality over quantity.

In its memo to shareholders, Netflix leadership wrote that “engagement is not just the quantity of view hours, but also refers to the quality and variety of our offering. To make this clearer, we’re making a change to our view hours disclosure. After today’s What We Watched report, which covers the first half of 2026, we will shift to publishing this report annually in the first quarter, beginning in 2027.”

“The goal of separating the publication of the report from our earnings results is to keep the focus on our primary financial metrics – revenue and operating profit,” the investor letter read.

It’s an interesting note, given that Netflix only began directly attaching its biannual “What We Watched” report to its quarterly earnings cycles last year. Prior to that, the engagement reports were released completely separately from the earnings reports.

The move also comes amid increased scrutiny over the performance of Netflix’s returning titles as of late. Netflix has pushed back on the so-called “sophomore slump” narrative that it is struggling with audience retention for some of its most popular series including The Night Agent, Beef, Nobody Wants This and more.

“We are not seeing any material change in our second season viewing compared to season ones, our second seasons are performing well within our bands of expectation,” Ted Sarandos said on the company’s second quarter earnings call on Thursday. “Very often we see drop off from season one to season two. It’s very common in the industry, but it’s even more so with us because we launch our shows so big.”

It is true that a modest audience decline is quite common season-over-season across all of television. However, as Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva recently reported, some shows like The Four Seasons have been down as much as 63% or more. The Lincoln Lawyer, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Running Point and Beef are also among the shows that saw quite a significant viewership drop upon return.

The latest “What We Watched” report also illustrates this phenomenon. In the first half of the year, five of the Top 10 most-watched television series premiered in the same timeframe, including His & Hers, which led the pack with more than 100M views since launch. Bridgerton, The Night Agent and One Piece were the only series that returned this year and managed to claim a spot — much different than the second half of 2025 when seven of the Top 10 most-watched seasons were popular returners and their previous installments.

Speaking of Bridgerton, Netflix Head of UCAN Scripted Series Jinny Howe used the series during a conversation with Deadline last week to challenge the idea that the streamer is struggling with retention, calling Season 4 “one of the biggest seasons that we’ve had.”

While it is still the second most-watched title of H1 2026, Bridgerton Season 4 was slightly down from the third season upon its arrival in February. It also could not crack the all-time most popular list, unlike all three of its predecessors. Seasons 1 and 3 remain on the list currently.

Regardless of the true reason for the change in reporting, this will certainly shrink the pool of insights available regarding Netflix titles. And yet, despite the change, Netflix still remains the most consistently transparent of the major PVOD services, because it is the only one to release any viewing data at all on a regular basis.