Netflix Project:

What does the distribution of Netflix's library look like?

Summary of Task:

As part of my skills bootcamp, one of the tasks assigned was to look into some data relating to Netflix's library of titles and advising a fictional streaming start up, 'CS Streaming' on their initial business strategy.

Below you will find the visualisations and analysis conducted for the project.

Table of Contents

Library Entry Types

Netflix's library has been categorised by 2 types of media:

Movies
TV Shows

The first question this raises is how the whole library is split between the two.

Which is more common - TV Shows or Movies?

Totals for each Type:

Total Entries: 8,807

Insight: From the graph above, it is appears that more movies were released on Netflix than TV shows.

However, this does not account for total episodes of TV Shows, as the duration figures provided refer to amount of Seasons available to stream, not individual episodes.

Given there are 4723 seasons in total within our data, it is likely there are numerous more TV Show episodes than Movies available to stream.

If data was available that provided separate entries for individual seasons, with corresponding season lengths, this analysis could give a more accurate summary of TV Show/Movie distributions.

How long are the shows/movies on Netflix?

General takeaways:

TV Shows tend to be only 1 Season.
Most movies fall in the 60 minute to 120 minute timeframe, with 75-90 minutes being the most common.

Insight: Netflix don't appear to have a large catalogue of successful TV Shows as a vast majority only last 1 Season (suggesting that viewership was not high enough to continue). CS Streaming could take advantage by offering A list selections in this area to separate themselves from Netflix.

Title availability by Country

Which countries have the largest catalogue of shows/movies?

Insight: Here we see circles representing the size of the streaming catalogue available in each country.

The larger the circle, the larger the catalogue.

North America and Europe tend to have the larger catalogues, with India also boasting a relatively large catalogue.

What do the actual figures say?

Total Catalogue for each Country

Total Library: 8,807

Insights: Above, we see that the USA has the largest Netflix catalogue, hosting 41.9% of the total library - 3.5 times 2nd placed India. This can be attributed to Netflix being an American company as well as America having the largest media market.

Does catalogue size correlate with the membership totals?

Total subscribers by Country (1000s):

Worldwide Subscribers: 221,748,000

Insight: On the whole, there tends to be a positive correlation between between catalogue size and total subscriptions.

However there are a few interesting results when comparing the data:

Brazil does not appear in the Top 15 for catalogue size, however has the 2nd most subscribers of any nation
India boasts the 2nd largest catalogue size, but only has the 10th most subscribers. This despite being having the largest population in the world (2023 figures)

Content Maturity Ratings

Do maturity ratings tell us anything about viewership?

Insight: Analysing the ratings of the Netflix library shows that a most of the content available is aimed at teenagers and older.

With this in mind, CS Streaming could aim their marketing as the kid friendly streaming platform. This would hopefully prove effective at creating a base of subscribers to then diversify their focus more evenly.

Insight: Looking at the rating totals, split by media type, it confirms that content aimed at kids is lacking within the Netflix library. The highest ranked kids content is TV-PG Movies in 6th place.

This further supports the recommendation that CS Streaming make a push at the younger market to gain a foothold in the industry.

Title Release Dates

Are there any patterns to release dates?

Insight: Looking at the releases by month, releases are quite inconsistent across the year. July and December are the most popular times of year for releases and February and May being the least popular.

CS Streaming should aim at providing a more consistent offering of new releases, to use as a USP against Netflix.

Insight: Looking at the release dates by day in the month, the beginning of the month is by far the most popular date in which to release new content, with the 15th being the 2nd most popular date.

Again, by offering a more consistent schedule for new releases, CS Streaming could take advantage of gaining new subscribers more steadily, instead of relying on influxes at months end.

Library Growth

What does the growth of Netflix's library look like?

Insight: As expected, the Netflix library has grown exponentially over, particularly after 3 years (2017). This will be due to the increase in popularity of the platform, as well as streaming generally.

CS Streaming can use this information as a reference point for their own development over the first few years of operation.

Content Genres

TV Shows and Movies are categorised into different genres based on the content of the plot amongst other things. The data provided is no exception to this.

In total, the data we were given had 42 different genre categories.

Below we take a look into whether there are insights to take from the genres of Netflix's titles.

Are there any trends regarding show/movies genre?

Total Values for each Genre

Total Library: 8,807

Insight: International Movies is the modal (most common) genre across all entries in the library, with international content taking 2 of the top 4 most common genres.

Given the prevalence of US users, lets see the distributions in the USA and the Rest of the World.

What are the most popular genres in the USA?

Actual Values for each Genre

Total entries: 6,780

What about outside the USA?

Actual Values for each Genre

Total entries: 6,780

Insights: Unsurprisingly, International Movies and TV Shows are largely accounted for in areas outside the USA.

Given the classification of International media is subjective to the country watching the media, i.e. For a US view, anything from outside the US would be considered international, whereas a non-US viewer could class a US produced show as International.

To factor in this ambiguity, we can look at the data without International content included.

Cross Comparison without International Content

Insights: Looking at the comparison across US and non-US audiences, 8 out of 10 genres appear in both top 10s:

Dramas, Comedies, Documentaries, TV Dramas, Action & Adventure, Romantic Movies, Independent Movies, TV Comedies

Given the prevalence of these genres across audiences, it could be inferred that these are amongst the most popular genres in the world, which CS streaming should take into account when curating their library.

Summary of Recommendations

Given the amount of information provided above, here I will summarise the main findings from the various areas of analysis conducted:

Netflix don't appear to have many successful TV Shows in their library based on the abundance of 1 Season TV Shows. CS Streaming could prioritise quality TV Shows to distinguish themselves from Netflix.
Generally, catalogue size has a positive correlation with subscribers by country. Utilise this pattern to break into desired markets.
The Netflix library is lacking in children focused content. CS Streaming could aim to target this market in order to gain an initial base of subscribers.
Netflix's release schedule is concentrated to certain times of the year and days each month. CS Streaming could offer a more consistent release schedule as a USP against Netflix.
Based off Netflix's growth, CS Streaming should hope to see continuous growth in their library year to year, with a dramatic increases from Year 3 onwards, once established.
There is a common theme in the more popular geners in Netflix's library across the world. These are:

Dramas, Comedies, Documentaries, TV Dramas, Action & Adventure, Romantic Movies, Independent Movies, TV Comedies

CS Streaming should be aware fo the mass popularity of these genres when developing their library.

Further Questions to Ask

What are the reasons for so many 1 Season shows?

a. Are 1 Season shows low in viewing numbers?

b. How many are 1 Season due to the nature of the show? (I.e. Docuseries)

Do more popular Movie lengths match with viewing figures?
What Movie time range has the most positive viewing figures/reviews?

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