Where Netflix goes in the streaming space, so too in many cases does the rest of the industry. And after years of Netflix publishing its own weekly streaming top 10 lists and making them public and searchable, Amazon Prime Video is doing the same. That’s neat, but Amazon’s list also lacks some key context that tends to make Netflix’s lists valuable: actual viewership data.
Amazon published its Top 10 lists for the most-watched original films, both in English & Non-English combined, as well as a separate one for just Non-English, and its most-watched original series again in both English and Non-English and a separate one one for Non-English. Topping the original film list in its inaugural week of May 25-31 is “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War,” a streaming original spun-off from the John Krasinski series that just debuted May 20 (the “Jack Ryan” series also appeared on the series list), and leading the original series list was “Off Campus.”
Amazon Prime has over 200 million members who have access to Prime Video, so these are very likely popular films and series. Too bad though Amazon didn’t also share how many people actually watched these films or series. The public list that went online, in addition to a list shared to Amazon social accounts each Wednesday, just has links to each of the titles about how to watch them, and that’s where the analysis ends. It’s also unclear if Amazon’s list long term will be part of a dedicated website that’s searchable and can track week-to-week which movies and shows dating back months have popped and for how long they’ve charted, let alone an all-time Top 10.
Outside of Netflix, most streamers tend to be close to the vest when reporting viewership data, more often simply saying that something had a record-breaking debut than specify to what degree. So it’s not exactly like Amazon is alone in not being overly transparent. But streamers like HBO Max and Peacock and others already have Top 10 lists viewable when browsing titles, they just aren’t published in weekly dispatches.
This list also only looks at original series and films, without the licensed content that also makes up Prime Video and might very well creep into the Top 10 week-to-week. One interesting feature is the merging of the English and Non-English language lists, whereas Netflix separates the two. This first film list of 10 has four international titles, including the Indian film “System” at #2, and some of these are ahead of Amazon MGM theatrically released tentpoles like “Mercy” and “Crime 101.” The original series list also includes two international titles in the Top 10, one from Germany and one from Japan.
We just wish Amazon was willing to brag about itself a little more. Though Netflix ultimately publishes a data dump of all its viewership data across a six month span, its weekly lists inherently prop up Netflix’s (many) wins and hide its flops, even when Bloomberg not long ago reported that Netflix had one of its lowest viewing weeks ever recently.
So how does Amazon stack up with its top titles? Technically we still don’t know.
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