You may remember that right around this time in 2018, Netflix ran a little experiment that turned out pretty well. Sandra Bullock starred in “Bird Box,” a Netflix original post-apocalyptic film before we ever locked ourselves in our homes during COVID. It turns out “Bird Box” worked out pretty well.
Seemingly, everybody watched the thriller over that holiday season. “Bird Box” is still the platform’s most popular movie, garnering 89 million streams during that period in late 2018-early 2019 at a time when they had only 130 million subscribers. And consider this: “Bird Box” watchers spent a ginormous 282 million hours with the film – an amazing degree of engagement.
How do we know this? Netflix actually released these numbers. But that’s a rarity. Historically, the channel has provided very little in the way of metrics for analysts to break their viewing numbers down.
But no more. CNN Business reporter Frank Pallotta reports Netflix has opened the statistical kimono a bit, revealing Top 10 numbers globally, and for individual countries. That transparency is unusual for Netflix, a company that has almost always kept viewership numbers under the cone of silence.
They’ve actually created a website for its video hierarchy – “Top 10 on Netflix” – provides weekly data. In fact, series and films will be ranked based on hours viewed (yes, their equivalent of TSL) – a metric they feel best represents engagement with their content.
Below is the ranker for the U.S. during the most recent week. It makes you wonder how long before a hosted version of the countdown with audio clips will be syndicated for radio. (Until then, morning shows, you can always steal it.)
Why the change of metrics mood at Netflix? Talk to the company’s VP of content strategy, Pablo Perez De Rosso: “People want to understand what success means in a streaming world, and these lists offer the clearest answer to that question in our industry.”
The Netflix Top 10 list will also produce another effect. Yes, we’ll check to see how shows that we’ve watched (or watching) – like “Squid Game” – is doing on the charts. But we’ll also discover other shows that are highly ranked, creating a sense that perhaps we’re missing something that many other people are enjoying.
This holiday season, Netflix isn’t just releasing a single feature like “Bird Box.” Their new list acts as a promo for a variety of hot shows, series, and films precisely at the time we want to wile away the December evenings binging great TV.
Somewhere (?), Casey Kasem is smiling. The original purveyor of radio countdowns – “American Top 40” – the Detroit born DJ and entertainer
popularized the idea of counting down the hits and building the drama so we all learn the #1 hit at the same time.
Of course, the tradition has been replicated – again and again – throughout the media world, including MTV’s “TRL” to the New York Times’ Best Sellers List,” and the NCAA College Football Coaches Poll. We don’t just want to know who and what is popular (or “trending” as now say), but who’s ahead of whom.
Let’s face it. Isn’t that the secret to the ratings? When someone asks how your ratings turned out, and you answer that your station had a 5.5. share, the automatic follow-up question is, “Where does that rank?” In other words, where did you finish, and most importantly, “Who’s #1?”
More than a half century ago in 1970, Kasem cracked the countdown code, figuring out why countdowns work. A number of years ago, Washington Post reporter, Emily Yahr, wrote a great story that tells all: “Thanks to Casey Kasem (and psychology), here’s why people love radio countdowns.”
Yahr quotes psychologists who maintain that countdowns are like puzzles we love to solve. They also play into our FOMO – we need to know that all-important ranking of what’s current and hot.
In fact, the director of the Media Psychology Research Center, Pamela Rutledge, insists countdowns demand resolution, “triggering our primitive survival instincts.” They are also curated and researched by someone else – in the case of both Netflix and Kasem, insiders who can look behind the curtain and tell us who’s ahead of whom.
Countdowns also play into our need for order – an especially rare commodity these days. When every fact now seems disputable, countdowns provide organization, and perhaps even a sense of truth – the one thing we can all agree on.
They are also mass appeal and fun – two characteristics that make countdowns universal in their popularity. Another game show host, Wink Martindale, once commented that Casey’s invention of the Top 40 pecking order made him “America’s records-keeper.”
And so here we come careening into the last few weeks of another frustrating and anguished year. But there are always those December countdowns of pretty much everything to keep us engaged as we await the beginning of a new year, a new start.
Every media source will be counting down the top 10 films, albums, celebrities, and faux pas of 2021 as they try to put a little order into a year that has been anything but.
For radio, the familiarity and popularity of countdowns make them the perfect end of year vehicle as well, whether you play new music, old music, or you’re a sports or news station. And thanks to to the digital world of websites and social media use, programmers can even give listeners access to their countdown “voting booth.”
Just like those bracket promotions that now pop up every year in March, countdown creativity is another key to programming a list that people find interesting, debatable, compelling, and even a bit controversial.
As Casey reminded us, “Anytime in radio that you can reach somebody on an emotional level, you’re really connecting.”
I might also add my favorite quote from programmer Steve Rivers:
“Play the hits.”
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Happy to partake this Thanksgiving weekend, Fred…as WROR in Boston counts down the “80 Essential Hits of the 80s”.
Hmm. Good 💡 idea!
I’ll kick it off Friday morning at 9am. My prediction for #1: Don’t Stop Believin’. But if you wanna know for sure, tune in! Just tell Alexa to play Wror Boston.
Good tease, my friend. But I’m going with my dark horse favorite, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Enjoy your holiday!
Whadda you know that I don’t?
(OH, pretty much everything!)
Happy Thanksgiving, Fred!
JC, so much of what you read is me reacting to ideas that I hear from broadcasters/readers like you. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks!
UPDATE ON OUR LIST:
#1 was
Don’t stop Believing.
Does that put me in the Jacob’s hall of fame? 😉
It puts you in the “Brave, But Crazy Hall of Fame.” At what point did people stop complaining? Seriously, congrats on shaking things up.
I ran a CHR radio network of 16 stations in Colombia.
All stations had to report their local Top 40 each week and I was in charge of tabulating all the information, taking into account the market sizes of the stations.
From there came the “Top 40 Radioactiva”, a countdown of the most popular hits in the country that was broadcast on Saturday afternoons live via satellite.
A disc jockey from each city made a report on what had happened that week in terms of events, concerts and different promotional activities with the listeners, and presented the local Top 3, all this in a report of 3 minutes of maximum duration.
I loved doing all that work and seeing the end result, but nothing compared to being on the air for those 5 hours, live, speaking to young people across the country.
Needless to say, much of the inspiration for the countdown came, obviously, from the great Casey Kasem along with Dan Bustany and the well-remembered Tom Rounds, of whom I pride myself on having been a personal friend.
Tito, nothing like being behind the mic while the magic is being made. Thanks for telling a great story.
I LOVE this comment! In fact, I always love your contributions, Tito! I love YOUR love of radio. Radio NEEDS more Titos!
Thank you, David! All I want is to share my passion and love for Radio.
One of the side effects of the Netflix charts is that they’ve understandably helped generate a good amount of horserace coverage specifically about its Korean productions (most recently, the newly released Hellbound).
Separately, one of the world’s largest CHR-related brands (Los40) started as a countdown show in Madrid, before becoming a fulltime format (eventually throughout much of Latin America). Given that it still has that countdown-related name, it shouldn’t be surprising that the various national sites tend to conspicuously post their weekly Top 40 lists (with some featuring a lot of historical rankings)–or that there are still a few weekly chart shows (including the international Los40 Global Show). The mothership in Spain also still issues annual CD (!) compilations of number-one songs.
And, one of the most-extensive bracket-related promotions that I’ve seen (at least, recently) is going on now: the TikTok-based, fandom-focused “Best Fans Forever” from Mexico’s Exa FM (with AT&T as a sponsor). In this case, the four geographic regions of March Madness are replaced by genres: Pop, Rap/Hip-Hop, Reggaeton/Urbano, and K-Pop.
Thank you for this context, Eric. I love the TikTok flip on bracketology.
Sometimes I fear I comment too often, but sheesh, Fred, sometimes it’s just too hard to NOT respond! This just brings back so many great memories, both of a childhood that included staying up to hear the year-end countdowns, and then the pure joy of getting to do it myself. You KNOW you’re a radio nerd when there’s no place you’d rather be on New Year’s Eve than behind a microphone hosting a countdown show!
And as for Mr. Martindale’s comment that Casey Kasem was “America’s records-keeper,” I see what he did there. (Winks, Winks, nudge, nudge.)
There’s no such thing as commenting too often. I’m glad that on most days, these posts resonate for you. And yes, Wink’s comment goes both ways. Happy Thanksgiving, and thank YOU for reading the blog.
Ha ha- David, the thrill of the countdown every New Year’s Eve-whether live or even voicetracked (and the timing of it all) created impressive challenges for those of us who were more interested in popping the “next song on our countdown” than a champagne cork or two. Or, maybe we did both. Always created an interesting programming for those who used US to be their companion.
Long before Casey, one of my predecessors at a little 5,000 watt station in upstate New York created a 4 O’Clock Top Ten Countdown. It was one of the highlights of the day. 2 years later I was the one creating the countdown. At first I thought it had to be accurate, but then I realized people were just there to hear where their favorite songs settled out for the day. We used -my mood – to create the Top 10. Beatles, Petula Clark, Syndicate of Sound, The Who, The Jaynetts. We found a way to create a set of 10 incredible songs regardless of their chronological presence in the world. Nearly 50 years later the advent of Mediabase and other services helped us create a countdown of 100. 200. 500 songs. Did we have to be accurate? Nah. self-training from 1966 helped us put together our annual countdowns. Timbre, artist separation, duplication (“Hotel California” can’t be #3 and #423.) Hearing it unfold before our very ears made us hope that the listener would be glued, song after song, to hear where their favorites showed up. This allowed them to either LOVE us or hate us. The formulation of “the countdown” into a well researched event like AT 40 was a stroke of genius that should be used on an ongoing basis for holiday promotion for just about any format. It’s a lot of work, but anyone who sat through every episode of “Spin and Marty” on The Mickey Mouse Club, “The Sopranos” or “Breaking Bad” knows the anticipation of – “what’s going to happen next”. It’s the combination of the music and the personality that provides the ongoing drama that is – “The Countdown”.
“Ongoing drama” is the way to put it, Dave. And the beauty of this unknown is that no one gets hurt. Oh, maybe there’s an argument or two about the outcome, but that’s good clean fun. In a world where we cannot seem to agree about what a fact is, “inaccurate countdowns” will get my attention every time. Thanks for the story and the context.