Based on our analysis, we were able to group our narrative under four general categories: Prevalence of Type, Country of Production, Genres, and Ratings. Feel free to use the menu on the right to navigate between each section.
Prevalence of Type (Movie vs. TV show)
Is there a balanced number of movie and TV shows?
The pie chart shows that a much larger percentage of content (68.42%) on Netflix is in the form of movies, contributing more than half of the number of titles currently available, than TV shows (31.58%). Further analysis with consumer trends could help us answer questions related to the 'why' behind movies making up a large chunk of Netflix's catalog. This, for example, begs a question of whether having movies as the majority of the content provided has helped keep or increase the audience retention rate.
The stacked bar chart displays the percentage of titles of each category (movies and TV shows) on the y-axis, and the month they were added to Netflix (for any year) on the x-axis. Movies are displayed through blue bars and TV shows through the yellow ones. We can see from the chart that most titles (movies and TV shows) were added to Netflix in December (696), across all given years, followed by October (646), November (612) and January (610). It is also evident that more movies than TV shows were added to Netflix in each month, across all years.
What would explain these trends? (e.g. consumer preference, licensing costs, general availability)
Although this is not clear from the information available through the dataset, it is possible that more titles are added during the Fall/ Winter months because of festivals such as Halloween and Christmas, when theme-related movies and TV shows are made and released. It is also possible that Netflix employs a smart marketing strategy and adds more titles to its database during December and January, which form the major chunk of the holiday season in the year. At this time, a lot of people are home or not working/ with their families, and hence have more time to spare to indulge in a Christmas movie or two. Coincidentally (or intentionally), the addition of titles to Netflix also corresponds to major award functions such as the Academy Awards and BAFTAs, which happen in February, as well as the Emmys in September. For future analysis, it would be interesting to compare this dataset to those of competing streaming platforms to see whether this would trend be replicated across other streaming platforms.
Country of Production
What countries are movies and TV shows typically produced in (how "international" are they by count and percentage)?
Compared to other countries, the United States is the most common country where movies and TV shows are produced (36.89% and 34.93%) respectively. Given that our data pertains to shows available in Netflix U.S., it makes sense that a larger concentration of domestic content is available to cater to American subscribers. However, this also means that the majority of shows on the platform are internationally produced, albeit shared across many different countries. This is consistent with other data visualizations which indicated that International Movies and TV Shows were the most populous genres.
At first glance, this conclusion almost seems contradictory to the previous point regarding a concentration of domestic content. However, Netflix went through a massive international expansion process in 2016 by adding 130 countries to its list, bringing the total number of countries to 190. While a large proportion of Netflix’s customers are based in the United States, the company would need to diversify its catalog to adjust to growing nationalities among its audiences in 189 other countries. With a limited budget, it is reasonable that many of these international shows would also end up under the U.S. catalog for more efficient spending. Therefore, while trends in our dataset cannot be generalized outside of the U.S., we can use international events to inform the trends that we do observe in our existing data.
Adding international genres does come with a cost; U.S. audiences may end up losing access to cult-favorite shows due to higher licensing costs (such as Orange is the New Black and F.R.I.E.N.D.S, which led to public dissent). However, the upside is that audiences get to be exposed to more diverse content and cultures through media, as opposed to Hollywood-centric themes that the domestic film industry infamously holds.
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Some country-specific observations:
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Based purely on the proportion of population, it makes sense why Indian films take up such a high percentage as there might also be a greater number of subscribers in the country.India has produced an impressive 15.01% of movies available. It has the second largest population in the world and is also one of the countries in which Netflix is offered, as opposed to China, where Netflix isn’t available.
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Due to the rising prevalence of Asian pop culture, Japan and South Korea also produce a notable amount of TV shows available on the platform (7.94% and 5.91% respectively).
Are the top countries where the movies/TV shows are produced also the top countries where people use Netflix?
From the data visualisations it is clear that the top countries where movies and TV shows are produced are the United States, India, the United Kingdom, South Korea Spain and Japan. However, upon research, the top countries of Netflix usage are the United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, the United KIngdom and France. This shows a loose relationship between the countries of content production and content consumption but definately reveals that the two are not the same. Instead, the counties where the movies and TV shows were produced are the countries with the largest film and television industries by output. India, with the bollywood industry, the United States with Hollywood, the UK and Japan are all mong the top 5 film industries in the world. Bollywood films in Netflix's rostra cater to the South Asian diaspora all over the world and the UK caters to the English speaking poulation of the US. Intrestingly, Nigeria and China which are also among the top producers of films in the world are not featured that heavily in Netflix's slection of films. This could be due to language barriers for the American consumer or due to political reasons.
Genre
Both movies and TV shows have "International" as their leading genre, followed with "Dramas" and "Comedies". Other popular genres for movies are "Action & Adventure" and "Independent," while those for TV shows are "Crime/Mysteries" and "Kids-Friendly."
The highest number of shows are added in October and December. Independent Movies were exclusively added in January. International Movies were exclusively added in June and October, and International TV Shows in July and October. With reference to our following graph, we see that these two genres were only added in 2017 and 2018. It is possible that Netflix acquired licensing rights to international shows all at once, causing their added dates all to coincide within the same period. Netflix expanded its platform to 130 additional countries in 2016, which coincides with the boom in international content. TV Dramas were added every month except for July. Musicals were most commonly added towards the end of the year. Musicals are typically more upbeat and associated with “happier” times, such as different holidays (e.g. Christmas, Thanksgiving) that occur at the end of the year. Most Children and Family Movies were consistently added, but mostly towards the end of the year. Similar to musicals, these movies are suitable for families to view together during the holiday season. Romantic Movies were mostly added in December; some were added in June. Romantic movies, especially romantic comedies, are often associated with the holidays. Many of them were likely added in December to accommodate the rise in viewership, while June is typically when students (among whom Netflix is popular) begin their summer holidays. Sci-Fi and Fantasy shows were added only in December. Overall, observing the most common genres added yields some interesting patterns which could provide some insight into how Netflix caters its content to its audiences. Reliability, consistency, and convenience are factors that would help the platform attract and retain subscribers; in other words, if a subscriber is able to log into their Netflix account and immediately find shows they are interested in, they would be satisfied quickly and more likely to repeat the same behavior. Therefore, one of Netflix’s strengths lies in its ability to consider outside factors (such as holiday seasons) and adapt to their influence on viewer preferences.
We see an increasing number of content provided over the years, with the exception of 2020 -- this is due to the limited dataset, as it accounts for up to early 2020 only. However, if we were to retrieve the data for the whole year of 2020, we would expect to see a similar increasing trend. Similarly to the monthly trend of genres, we see that "International" and "Dramas" are the two leading genres. We additionally observe that "Comedies", "Horror/Thrillers", "Action & Adventures", "Independent", and "Romance" have increased over time, especially from 2015 to 2019. One reason could be that more users have gained interests in watching content from those categories. Overall, we can state that Netflix has been trying to more and more content in several genres.
All genres (including Dramas. Comedies, and International) have consistently added throughout the years, with the exception of Stand-Up -- for the purpose of our analysis of the annual trend, we do not look at the 2020 data, as it does not take into account the whole year.
This wide variety of genres are likely consistently popular among Netflix subscribers; this would explain why Netflix regularly adds new content in order to retain viewer interest. Additionally, when looking at the monthly trend for each genre, we see that "International", "Comedies", and "Dramas" saturate the visualization in such a sense that all other genres are provided much less often. Another interesting note to make is that there are fluctuations across the months for each genre, which means there is almost or no seasonality for any of the generalized genres.
Ratings
This Gantt chart shows the distributions of IMDB ratings within each genre. On average, all genres seem to be rated decently (7/10), though the range of ratings are often quite wide. Therefore, there doesn't seem to be concrete correlations between IMDB ratings and genres. Consistent to our hypothesis, the chart reveals that there are many other factors (e.g. Netflix viewer ratings, licensing costs, international appeal) that determine whether a show gets added to Netflix's catalog or not.
First, based on these two graphs, there is a much wider range of release years among the shows (1947-2020) compared to the range of years when these shows were added onto Netflix. One explanation is that Netflix didn’t transition from DVD sales to video streaming until 2008; the other is that as a seller, Netflix would want to provide a wide variety of options for its consumers to enjoy and watch in order to retain their attention. Additionally, the average IMDB ratings are greater than 5 for all years movies and TV shows were added on Netflix, and almost all years they were first publicly released. However, to answer the question, there is no clear trend between average IMDB ratings and either of the year categories. It’s also interesting that average IMDB ratings were absent for both charts – with years the content was first publicly released and the years it was added to the streaming services platform. The absence of these ratings, however, does not indicate that the ratings for movies were necessarily higher than those for TV shows. For both charts, we see that for the majority of the time that is provided for, the ratings for TV shows were equal to or higher than those for movies.
*A rating of 0.00 means that there is no data for that year.
The distribution of different ratings within each genre show that they typically target one of three distinct age groups of audiences:
Based on the proportions of ratings within each genre, the relationship between content ratings and genre can be illustrated by the following classifications by age group:
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Age Group 1 – children and youth: Children & Family Movies, Kids’ TV
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Age Group 2 – adolescents and above: Comedies, Thrillers, TV Dramas, TV Shows
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Age Group 3 – adults or mature audiences: Action & Adventure, Documentaries, Docuseries, Dramas, Horror Movies, Stand-Up Comedies, TV Comedies
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The genres in the Age Group 3 – which include Stand-Up Comedies, Action & Adventure, and Horror Movies – do not shy from using profanity, dark humor, or inappropriate language, or depicting violence and sexual themes. According to the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board, these are factors that determine how “mature” a show’s rating should be. Given that Netflix subscribers include 52% of adults in the U.S., basic laws of supply and demand can explain why the majority of genres appeal to more mature audiences. However, a plethora of content is also available for children and adolescents, catering to families who are sharing the same subscription. Netflix’s ability to include genres and shows based on its current audience reveals that its content licensing or production process is thoughtful and targeted, which can shed some light on its continued success and dominance in the streaming industry. In addition, as we will see from the analysis of Q2, while International Movies and TV Shows are the most numerous genres in the Netflix U.S. catalog, almost all of these shows are not rated under the American content rating system. Hence, the explanations from this analysis are only applicable to domestic shows.
What are the most common words in show descriptions, and what do they reveal about viewer interests?
Based on this word cloud created in Voyant Tools, we see that some of the most common words in show descriptions within the catalog are young, life, world, new, family, friends, man, woman, love, home, and school. This pattern is intriguing as most of these themes have to do with everyday life. In addition, by conducting basic sentiment analysis, we see that these themes are either neutral or positive. This indicates that viewers tend to enjoy watching films that are relatable to their personal experiences and different stages of life. It also corresponds to common attitudes towards media entertainment as enjoyable, relaxing, or a form guilty pleasures.
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The bar chart displays the generalized MPA Rating on the x-axis, and the number of titles for each category (movies/ TV shows) on the y-axis. The bar chart is divided into 2 sections: movies and TV shows. 10 titles were not given any rating and hence have been excluded from the visualization. We can see clearly from the bar chart that a very high number of movies available on Netflix are rated "adolescence and adults" (2019), whereas only about half that number of TV shows received the same rating (999). We also see that more movies than TV shows are given ratings that make them unsuitable for a younger audience ("adults or mature audiences"), which could be due to a higher number of movies than TV shows being available on Netflix (according to the dataset used).
Titles rated "adolescents and adults" and "adults or mature audiences" form the majority of the titles available on Netflix, which implies that a great deal of Netflix’s content is not suitable for children, especially those under the age of, for example, 14. This could be a deliberate move by Netflix owing to demand of such content, or its target audience being older teenagers and above.
Based on the catalog's sample of shows with IMDb ratings from 0-4, a vast proportion of the films with poor IMDB ratings are children's films, international films or "niche" genres such as "Faith and Spirituality" or "Musicals". Children's movies are commonly rated by parents, while international viewers may submit their ratings on a more domestically popular platform than IMDb, causing biased distributions. Additionally, as IMDb ratings are submitted by users worldwide, films in less common categories may have a lower viewership and appeal, causing lower ratings compared to more widely enjoyed genres. Some of them have well-known cast members and directors, but those do not constitute a majority. Therefore, Netflix may still choose to license these films in an attempt to diversify their movie selections and appeal to a broader audience.