14 DAY TRIAL // We all know how much of a time suck Netflix is, but have you ever wondered just how much time people spend on the service? Well, you're in luck, because Netflix has and it is more than happy to tell everyone that members watch a little over 1 billion hours per week.
According to the company, in one of the few times they've chosen to disclose such information about viewing time, Netflix members watch a lot of shows every week.
Of course, even Netflix compares itself with Google, admitting there's no way to beat the 1 billion hours a week YouTube users spend on the platform.
"We definitely have YouTube envy," joked Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, during the discussions following the latest earnings results published by the company. The irony was that the company's quarterly discussion was also streamed on YouTube.
Not the best comparison
Comparing Netflix to YouTube, however, isn't exactly the best way to go. Many YouTube users commonly start a playlist and switch tabs to whatever they are working on, using the service as a sort of radio, if you will. On Netflix, however, you're actually watching the videos, be it TV shows, movies or documentaries.
That means that 1 billion hours per week is a good number for Netflix. It's difficult to make a comparison between various periods in Netflix's history to see how its popularity has grown since the company doesn't really release such data often. In all of 2015, however, Netflix members watched just over 42.5 billion hours. In the last three months of 2016, however, the number rose to 12 billion hours, or 1 billion per month.
If you are curious what people are watching, well, you're in luck because the company revealed that Adam Sandler movies are quite popular. In fact, in the year and a half that has passed since original Sandler movies were added to Netflix, members have streamed 500 million hours of just those. It shouldn't be a surprise then that Netflix keeps funding these, with another four movies added to the list following the most recent update of the contract.