Most-watched Indian content on Netflix: Rana Naidu is number one, Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga and Mission Majnu take second and third place

Netflix's data dump reveals that Indian titles on the platform were non-competitors for the top spots, were generally poorly reviewed, and mostly Hindi-centric.

The most-watched Indian titles on Netflix included originals, licensed titles, and acquisitions.

Netflix on Tuesday made public its most transparent viewership figures yet. The streamer had previously been reluctant to share data with the public and the investors, mainly to avoid letting the competition in on trade secrets. But after this year’s SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, which predominantly focused on revenue sharing in the age of secretive stats, the company has unveiled figures for more than 18,000 titles – both films and shows – on the platform.

The list skewed in the favour of long-form content, mainly because the rankings have been organised on the basis of total hours viewed. The report, titled What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report, covers titles that got more than 50,000 combined viewing hours on Netflix from January to June 2023. The list was topped by the first season of The Night Agent, which raked in a total of more than 800 million viewership hours. The second season of Ginny & Georgia took the second spot with 665 million hours. But while a handful of international titles found spots in the top 10, the most-viewed Indian title was Rana Naidu, which took the 336th spot, with 46 million hours viewed.

Foreign language titles generated 30% of all viewing, Netflix said. Here are the top 10 most-watched Indian titles, including series, films, acquisitions, licensed titles, and originals.

Story continues below this ad

Rana Naidu – 46,300,00 – Overall ranking 336
Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga – 41,700,00 Overall ranking 401
Mission Majnu – 31,200,000 Overall ranking 599
Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway – 29.600,000 Overall ranking 651
Class – 27,700,000 Overall ranking 724
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar – 27,100,00 Overall ranking 762
Shehzada – 24,800,000 Overall ranking 840
Scoop – 17,300,00 Overall ranking 1248
An Action Hero – 15,600,000 Overall ranking 1381
Gumrah – 14,700,000 Overall ranking 1437

What can be gathered from this list is that the majority of it is acquired content and not originals that Netflix produces itself. Additionally, besides the originals, the acquired content wasn’t available the world over. What can also be observed is the lack of regional presence. Each Indian title listed here is predominantly in the Hindi language. Even Rana Naidu, which starred Telugu actors, was billed as a Hindi language show. Additionally, most of these titles, barring two or three, were poorly reviewed.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in a press conference that the company doesn’t plan on sharing data on a country-level. “That’s an enormous amount of competitive intelligence that we’d be putting out there,” he said. Sarandos claimed that this is the actual data that they use to ‘run the business’, and added, “I’m the co-CEO of a public company, so sharing bad information has consequence. So this is the actual data that we use to run the business. And in terms of the requirements for things like advertising, Nielsen does require third-party validation on those things. But this is our data, and it is our accurate data. It’s the data that we use to run the business that we’re sharing with you. Us compiling the data to provide to a third party to provide it to you seems like a lot of steps for something that’s already a pretty heavy lift.”

The list will be updated every six months.

Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.

Israel ‘intends to take control of Gaza’, says Netanyahu, but has no plans to ‘govern’ it

World3 hr ago

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel plans to take control of the entire Gaza Strip to ensure national security and remove Hamas. He clarified that they do not intend to govern the area long-term, but rather create a security perimeter. This has sparked concerns from aid agencies about the potential for more Palestinian deaths and displacement.

View all shorts

More Entertainment

Entertainment Dhadak 2: Shazia Iqbal destroys ancient Bollywood Dharma in the best Karan Johar production since Jigra