Deconstructing streaming global audiences: Netflix’s global top 10 as a geo-political, economic, sociolinguistic construct

Netflix remains the most popular global subscription video on-demand (SVOD) service (available in more than 190 countries) with more than 232 million global subscribers. However, in the five years following Netflix’s 2016 international expansion, there was little information available regarding the consumption practices of global audiences due to the company’s long-standing anti-transparency data policies and varied content across national libraries. In November 2021, Netflix introduced a new data policy that included the continual release of multiple weekly top 10 reports (backdated to July 2021) listing the most-watched English and non-English-language films and TV series (Porter, 2021). The present article proposes to analyze Netflix’s weekly global top 10 list figures for English and non-English across almost two years starting on June 28, 2021, and ending on May 29, 2023. While our analysis acknowledges the limitations of Netflix’s viewership public figures, it also claims that a proper contextualization based on recent academic research and economic data extracted from the specialized press could turn Netflix’s Global Top 10 figures into a fertile ground to examine current dynamics in the production, distribution, and consumption of global streaming contents.