Now Netflix Is Cutting Back on How Often We Get Engagement Data

Last year, Netflix made the decision to stop reporting quarterly subscriber numbers, opting only to announce subscribers updates after hitting major milestones. Now Netflix is doubling down on this strategy, confirming it will provide general engagement data even less frequently than before.

Different to the number of members, Netflix’s engagement data focuses on viewed hours, giving an indication of the total number of hours viewed in a period as well as top-performing titles.

This week, for example, Netflix’s What We Watched report for the first half of 2026 showed the userbase watched more than 97 billion hours of content. This included the likes of War Machine generating 147 million views, Swapped hitting 131 million, His & Hers pulling in 104 million, and season four of Bridgerton totaling 100 million.

While Netflix typically releases a What We Watched report twice a year, this week’s report was the last to arrive under that release schedule.

Going forward, Netflix says it will now release its What We Watched report only once a year. Beginning in 2027, the report will arrive in the first quarter of each year.

Although this does mean another one will roll through in six months from now, the next one will then be a full year later.

“Engagement is important to our business. But as discussed above, 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,” Netflix said in its Q2 letter to shareholders.

According to Netflix, the reason for this change is that the company wants its earnings results to focus on primary financial metrics like revenue and operating profit.

“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,” Netflix added.

This was the very same reason Netflix gave back in 2024 when it first announced it would be dropping the reporting of quarterly subscriber numbers, albeit with one notable difference.

Back then, Netflix highlighted engagement as an important metric that would continue to be reported.

““As we’ve noted in previous letters, we’re focused on revenue and operating margin as our primary financial metrics — and engagement (i.e. time spent) as our best proxy for customer satisfaction,” Netflix said in April 2024.

With that customer satisfaction metric now relegated to an annual event, it would seem Netflix no longer views engagement (time spent) quite as importantly as it did two years ago.