• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 1, 2024

Are you having trouble deciding what to watch on your streaming service?

Well, many of those premium streamers like Netflix will just tell you what is popular, and what your fellow subscribers are already watching in a big way.

Now Disney+ is doing the same thing. It is launching a top-ten list in a bid to boost engagement, viewing, interest and everything else in between.

Netflix has been doing this for years.

Still, there will be some differences, depending on the subscribers -- for example, those with parental control settings.

It will also be different for Disney+ subscribers that also have Disney's sister service Hulu. For those subscribers, Hulu has its own access “tile” on Disney+ on its home page.

For decades, linear TV networks have promoted their own programming to existing viewers via super-energize TV on-air promos. But those networks never offered up a list of their “top” viewing shows, per se. 

Still, it's not as if Netflix or the forthcoming Disney+ list are revealing many viewing specific details or granular preferences in terms of their top programs.

For its top-ten list, Disney says it will look at total views of programs or movies or other factors like the growing popularity of new titles.

If consumers want a deeper dive into results, they should then be directed then to their favorite third-party TV measurement service -- if they really want to know the details.

Perhaps this might include 1) the average age of a specific TV show; 2) how many men and women are watching; 3) a program or movie's biggest demographic group; or 4) the average income of that household?

Then again, perhaps this would not be of major interest to most viewers.

That said, TV networks and streamers might take a page from major movie studios that regularly release weekend box-office revenue results on Mondays. This is something the consumer press regularly picks up as news stories -- especially in big summer and end-of-the-year holiday periods.

One major problem is that TV ratings data is not as easily digestible as that of more pure revenue dollars. 

Do TV and streaming need even more transparency in this regard -- especially now that streamers have specific census-based data from their own servers?  

More importantly, if I am watching a young, hip reality show like Peacock's “Love Island” or Hulu's "The Kardashians,”-- does that make me cool?