Netflix is quite the media darling these days and even made it to my evening commute listen of Marketplace. You can listen to that show here but the part that caught my attention was the bit where media analyst James McQuivey says:
The people who are streaming the most, it’s because they have children at home. They’re watching an immense amount of “Pink Panther.” They are watching a tremendous number of Disney programs.
Really? Some SQL queries on FeedFliks later, it appears that he might be only somewhat right: the kiddie programs are the second most popular genre on Netflix’s Instant Watch service. And the most popular? Television. Between them, these two account for nearly two-thirds of all streaming activity on Netflix. Here’s what the breakup looks like today (Thanksgiving 2010):
To follow along how this changes, bookmark Most Popular Streaming Genres on FeedFliks. We’ve also added two handy links to the footer: Most Streamed Titles and Most Rented Titles. The former, as you’d expect by now, is heavily dominated by Television.
However, ‘Pink Panther’, while available on Netflix Streaming, isn’t anywhere on the Top 50 Most Streamed Titles which suggests that neither media analysts not the venerable NPR are always right!