Netflix: Users spent 812 million hours watching The Night Agent

Netflix has released viewer data on 99% of its catalogue for the first time.

Users around the world watched The Night Agent for 812m hours, making the political thriller its most viewed show in the first half of this year.

The streaming giant has been criticised for not being transparent about how content performs on its platform.

The criticism was central to this year’s Hollywood strikes, which paralysed the film and television industry for several months.

Actors and writers have been demanding higher royalties for shows that performed well on streaming platforms.

On a conference call with the media, co-chief executive Ted Sarandos acknowledged that the lack of transparency about the popularity of its shows had led to distrust in the creator community.

He added that Netflix had kept its viewer data private while it was building the business so it could experiment without giving away crucial information to potential competitors.

“This is a big step forward for Netflix and our industry,” the company said in a blog post.

“We believe the viewing information in this report… will give creators and our industry deeper insights into our audiences, and what resonates with them.”

Hollywood’s creative community relies on viewing figures from audience data firm Nielsen – released annually – for traditional broadcast and cable television.

The What We Watched report ranks 18,000 titles by the amount of hours viewed between January and June this year. The company said it will now release the report every six months.