Tag: Netflix

Full House of Cards: Netflix New Online Series Analytics

February 3rd, 2013 by Cam Cullen
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    There was much talk and hype for the online launch of the Netflix Original Series “House of Cards” throughout this week. Andrew Wallenstein (Variety) wrote an article about how Netflix needs to rethink their strategy about “binge” viewing – when a viewer. EW Weekly, Fast Company, and the New York Times also wrote about the topic – and opinions are varied if it was a good strategy to release the entire series in one shot or not.

    Well, I binge viewed the entire season (and I really enjoyed it!) – it is my favorite way to watch TV shows. It is one of the things I love the most about Netflix – the ability to watch an entire TV series (or occasionally a season) episode after episode is instant satisfaction – especially if you have not seen the shows before. What happens in the next episode? Find out in 10 seconds! Cliff hangers are immediately resolved!

    And it appears I was not the only one. Although Netflix traffic levels on the North American networks that Procera monitors did not go up significantly over the weekend, we were able to distinguish the House of Cards traffic from other Netflix traffic.  On one broadband network, 11% of Netflix subscribers watched at least one episode of the series. Below is a chart from Saturday on a second network (which is when most binge viewing occurred):

    HoCEpisodes

    Although each episode was not a major factor in overall traffic on this network (especially since the episodes are ~50 minutes long), in aggregate they add up. It is clear that the first few episodes were the most heavily watched, but the later episodes got their fair share of action. We even saw one subscriber on a network that consumed 16G of his usage on House of Cards over the weekend (hmm, how would that affect broadband caps?)

    On a different network, House of Cards spiked almost up to 5% of overall Netflix bandwidth usage as shown below (we started monitoring late in the day on Friday):

     HoCaspercentISP1

    Was the series launch a success for Netflix? Time will tell, but I really enjoyed the series and I think it reflected well that it got the “launch” ratings that it did. The question is if the series will have longevity with the binge viewing or not, and Netflix will surely be watching the replays of the show over time with the other new series that they have In the works (which I am really looking forward to some more Arrested Development!)

    London 2012 Summer Olympics Broadband Analytics: Mobile and Fixed Update: Week 2 Europe and North America

    August 12th, 2012 by Cam Cullen
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      Some more interesting data to share on European mobile traffic and North America fixed line networks and usage (ironic since I am actually in Europe this week!). I will have an update covering the lessons learned from the Olympics later this week.

       

      1.  For a European mobile network, a survey during the Olympics (but not focused on Olympics traffic specifically) on different handset types usage over the second week of the Olympics revealed that for handsets, Apple users consume more total volume than any other handset, with Samsung users being very close behind (Figure 1).  For tablets, the iPad (new) followed by the iPad 2 and the original iPad had the most usage per device. For mobile broadband dongles, Huawei modems used far more per device than any other type, with 6 of the top 10 broadband modem models being Huawei (Figure 2).

       

      2 & 3. As a follow-up on Netflix, we are finding that there are regional as well as size variances with the peak Netflix consumption. An East Coast site (Figure 3) showed a significant drop in Netflix peak rates (the totals show are the peak rates for each day). However, a West Coast site (Figure 4) showed very little variance in Netflix during the entire Olympics run. The interesting fact about both sites is that the total video consumed across all sites does not increase at all, with all types of video (Netflix, YouTube, HTTP Media Streaming) remaining proportional across all sites. It also follows that the less bandwidth and subscribers that exist on a network, the more susceptible it is for dramatic changes in video streaming. With around 5% of broadband subscribers on most cable and DSL networks taking advantage of Netflix on a weekly basis (average across the Procera footprint), a small number of subscribers partaking in other forms of entertainment (as we saw on the first Sunday of the Olympics) can have a significant impact on the total consumption.

       

      3. There have been some really good other studies done on the impact of the Olympics. Some recommended ones are:

      BBC Study for how the Olympics has been viewed on their site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/08/olympic_statistics_traffic_week.html

      Google Analytics on searches for Olympics: http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2012/08/going-for-mobile-gold-10x-increase-in.html

      		  

      Figure 1: Mobile Brand Usage

      Figure 2: Mobile Broadband Devices Usage



      Figure 3: Netflix Streaming on East Coast Network during Olympics

      Figure 4: Netflix Streaming on West Coast Network during Olympics

       

      London 2012 Summer Olympics Broadband Analytics: Streaming Explodes

      July 31st, 2012 by Cam Cullen
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        After a slow start on Friday and Saturday, Sunday was the day that the Olympics streaming became a force to be reckoned with.

        1. In the US, several networks peaked as high as 34% of overall bandwidth and increased in volume by over 100% over the initial two days of events. Many reports detailed how people were watching one event on TV and streaming other events on PCs and tablets. Since we did not see a huge rise in the percentage of subscribers participating in the streaming events, this translates into longer streaming sessions and more sessions for each subscriber. With the NBC delaying some of the more high profile events until primetime (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/sports/olympics/nbc-olympics-delay-and-streaming-bring-complaints-on-twitter.html?partner=rss&emc=rss), streaming during these events will continue to be popular. With the results available on Twitter (the news source of choice for most high tech consumers today), Olympics viewers risk knowing the results before the broadcast, and want to see the events live.

        2. In the UK, BBC iPlayer, after a slow start over the weekend, hit full stride during the GB Olympic football team match. Streaming was up over 100% over normal Sunday levels, across all platforms (IOS, Android, PC, Mac), with the Olympic streaming specifically accounting for half the traffic (which conveniently accounts for the difference from normal traffic!). The IOS platform was the most popular platform, with a 10x usage lead over Android, heavily leveraging the latest iPad platform. Since the subscribers being monitored on this mobile network are native GB residents, it is likely that this pattern will continue throughout the games during events of great interest to the British fans. This has been confirmed by BBC themselves (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/30/olympics-opening-ceremony-views-iplayer), claiming that Sunday was a record day for iPlayer.

        3. Netflix streaming was unchanged from normal in Canada, but was down 25% in the US on Sunday from normal levels on some networks. This matches expectations, as the US is much more involved in the Olympics than Canada, and with the peak levels that we mentioned earlier for Olympics streaming, something had to give, and in this case it was Netflix. Netflix even blamed the Olympics for anticipated slower growth this quarter (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Netflix-Blames-Olympics-For-Slowing-Growth-120525). (Note: This is what was observed on Procera’s network deployments around North America).

        4. Studying the usage patterns of different devices on the mobile networks, the iPhone 4 reigns as the king of usage. The average iPhone 4 user consumed more than 2x the bandwidth of an iPhone 4s user, and 3x the bandwidth of the leading Android phones (Samsung Galaxy models). The bandwidth consumption is shown in Figure 1a to the right. These numbers should change during the week as mobile devices become a primary source of Olympic updates.

        		 Image 1a: Top Mobile Phone Model Comparision