On Monday, Apple patted itself on the back by unloading a number of impressive-sounding proclamations connected to the Season 2 debut of Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. Notably, the company did not release any actual empirical viewership statistics. Last week, Netflix revealed a small smattering of member account viewership numbers for select titles. Of course, the company doesn’t allow any third-parties to verify its claims and uses a divisive benchmark to determine a “view.” In June, Disney claimed that the season premiere of Loki was the most-watched first episode in Disney+ history, but declined to go any further than that. In March, Amazon boasted that Coming 2 America was the most-watched streaming movie in its opening weekend of the year, but failed to explain how or why with real numbers.
Everywhere you look within the streaming industry, the trend is the same: unverifiable numbers or vague platitudes meant to sound monumental. In reality, major streaming services guard its viewership data with the zealous fervor of Thanos hoarding the Infinity Stones. They don’t want us to paint an accurate picture.
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