Solar Eclipse A Downer For Netflix But Boon For Facebook, Twitter
It’s tough to compete with Mother Nature. Netflix, which is notoriously guarded about ratings information for its shows, was surprisingly transparent about the decline in viewers during Monday’s total solar eclipse.
Hey, just wondering why 10% of you chose to watch a giant rock cover a giant ball of gas when I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE FOR YOU.
— Netflix US (@netflix) August 22, 2017
but really, there was a 10% drop in plays during the eclipse today. Well played, Moon
— Netflix US (@netflix) August 22, 2017
Netflix boss Ted Sarandos has spoken at length at previous TCA events about ratings for the streaming service.
At TCA in 2016, when presented with a research study that provided viewership numbers for streaming services, including Netflix, Sarandos dismissed the methodology and accuracy of the numbers reported, calling it a “really remarkably inaccurate data” that “doesn’t reflect any reality.”
The news was much better for Facebook. More than 66 million people took to the social media juggernaut, resulting in 240 interactions including posts, reactions, shares and comments around the solar eclipse, making it a bigger event on Facebook than the 2017 Super Bowl, according to the company.
It also was huge on Facebook Live, with more than 129,000 broadcasts from people and publishers. Videos (live and non-live) related to the solar eclipse were viewed over 365 million times.
NASA’s Facebook Live was the top live video on the platform for the day, with more than 29 million views. At one point, NASA’s feed had a half-million simultaneous viewers from around the world.
Meanwhile, on Twitter there were 10.9 million mentions of the eclipse in the last seven days and 8.1 million in the last 24 hours (since 3:30 PM ET August 21), according to social data intelligence company Talkwalker.
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