Netflix study looks at binge habits of Canadian, global users

This image released by Netflix shows Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar in the Netflix Original Series "Narcos." (Daniel Daza/Netflix)

TORONTO -- Canadian fans of the Netflix series "Narcos" share something in common with viewers in other countries: they got hooked on the cartel crime drama by just the third episode, according to new research released by the streaming service.

Netflix defines the "hooked" episode as the one most predictive that a viewer will go on to complete the full first season -- more specifically, the episode that kept 70 per cent of viewers tuned in through to the end.

Overall, Canadian members are getting on board with the shows they binge faster than last year, with viewers getting hooked on average by the third episode, compared to the fourth episode in 2015.

"So, a year ago it may have been episode three for 'Grey's Anatomy,' for example, and this year it's by episode two," said Cindy Holland, Netflix's vice-president of original content, in a phone interview from Los Angeles.

"We're hypothesizing that that has something to do with (the fact that) as consumers get more used to the on-demand model and get used to binge-watching that they embrace it more fully."

Canadian viewers were hooked faster than global users on "Gilmore Girls" and "The Good Wife," while they took longer to warm to the network drama "How To Get Away With Murder" and the Netflix original smash hit "Stranger Things."

But Holland noted that the the hooked metric isn't directly linked to viewership numbers.

"There's no correlation between the episode number in which a viewer was hooked on average and overall audience size," she said.

For this year's study, Netflix expanded its research to look at the consumption habits of more than 30 additional series on a worldwide scale.

"It's something we want to track over time to see if it's a stable metric, or if it's evolving over time as our markets mature," said Holland.