• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 2, 2019

In case you missed it, Netflix has offered industry executives another inside peek -- giving us a sense of how popular its programming is. Traditional TV people might define those numbers differently.

For its new movie “Bird Box,” the SVOD service posted this tweet: “Took off my blindfold this morning to discover that 45,037,125 Netflix accounts have already watched "Bird Box" — best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film!”

This was accompanied by a short video of star Sandra Bullock dropping her blindfold.

Now, Netflix didn’t offer much in the way of granular specifics around those 45 million accounts. Did this represent just U.S. accounts, some 57.4 million, or the 72.7 million global accounts?

And for what length of time? Was it the entire movie? For the first 10 minutes? An hour and a half?

OK, we get it. This is not a Nielsen sample. Netflix knows lots of actual specifics, as well as other user histories of its programming. But it doesn’t always want to share this data.

Virtually a year ago (coincidence?), Netflix took out “Bright,” its first big movie starring Will Smith. Netflix didn’t offer much insight here. But Nielsen did — saying the film took in 11 million streaming “viewers” in the U.S. over its first three days.

All this might be beside the point. Then, as now, there are no traditional “advertising” factors attached to these numbers. Netflix, in case you live under a rock, doesn’t run traditional TV advertising during its content.

But we know Netflix's ultimate goal: To get more TV homes to sign on. And to do that? Get more talent on the order of Ms. Bullock, as well as other off-screen movie pros — veteran movie producers and directors — to commit to Netflix for future big-vision stuff.

This is part of a plan that also includes grabbing more award hardware. Netflix has nabbed 225 nominations, resulting in 43 awards. But it has yet to claim the top Emmy prizes: Best Drama or Comedy Series.

Right now, Netflix has its sights on bigger fish. “Roma,” a period piece, set in 1970 and 1971, a semi-autobiographical take on director Alfonso Cuarón's upbringing in Mexico City, has started in theaters and on its SVOD platform. Netflix has been pushing “Roma” as an Oscar contender -- a nomination for a best picture.

Should it win, perhaps Netflix won’t need to worry about disclosing TV-like “viewing” — er, user account — data.