Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Photo : Getty Images Netflix is notorious for not giving a single shit about ratings. It does not report viewership numbers to investors, entertainment reporters, Hollywood, or fans—a fact that can be especially frustrating when popular shows seemingly get canceled out of the blue. But in a step toward transparency, today Netflix published a series of top 10 lists for the most-watched content in the United Kingdom, according to a Variety report. Advertisement Topping the overall list for April is the David Attenborough-narrated nature series Our Planet, followed by romcom flick The Perfect Date starring teen heartthrob Noah Centineo, and crime film The Highwaymen. There are also lists for series, documentaries, films, English-language shows, reality shows, and non-English language shows. The Variety report says that some customers may begin seeing these lists as early as next week, though the format as to how that information will appear is still unclear. Netflix also remains tight-lipped as to what criteria were used to determine what content was “most watched.” The only details Netflix provided was that “watched” meant 70 percent of one episode was completed. As for hard numbers? Forget it. Though Netflix occasionally teases out viewership information, those instances aren’t consistent and hardly verifiable. You just have to trust Netflix is telling the truth. Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo. That said, the decision to release the top 10 lists isn’t exactly out of the blue. In a letter to investors for Q2 2019, CEO Reed Hastings explained “For those who want to watch what others are watching, this may make choosing titles even easier. After a few months, we’ll decide whether to end or expand the test.” Advertisement To get a look at the Netflix viewing habits of the Brits, y ou can check out the full top 10 rankings below. Overall Our Planet The Perfect Date The Highwaymen The Silence Black Summer After Life The Spy Who Dumped Me Riverdale Chilling Adventures of Sabrina You vs. Wild Series Black Summer After Life Riverdale Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Star Trek: Discovery Lunatics Bodyguard Santa Clarita Diet Bonding Brooklyn Nine-Nine Documentaries Our Planet The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann Homecoming: A film by Beyoncé The Legend of Cocaine Island Street Food The Investigator: A British Crime Story Formula 1: Drive to Survive Roman Empire One Strange Rock Top 10 Secrets and Mysteries Films The Perfect Date The Highwaymen The Silence The Spy Who Dumped Me Someone Great Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Baywatch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Sniper: Ultimate Kill Sicario: Day of the Soldado English-language shows Quicksand The Ruthless Osmosis Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga Delhi Crime Mirage Bitter Daisies A Fortunate Man Burn Out The Protector Reality shows You vs. Wild RuPaul’s Drag Race RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked! Queer Eye Selling Sunset Impractical Jokers Sugar Rush Tidying Up with Marie Kondo Love Island American Idol Non-English language shows Quicksand The Ruthless Osmosis Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga Delhi Crime Mirage Bitter Daisies A Fortunate Man Burn Out The Protector [Variety]<doc-sep>Streaming-leader Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) has been consistently secretive about the popularity (or lack thereof) of its programming. This is in stark contrast to broadcast or cable shows that make money from advertising and release viewership data to prove their worth. That may be changing. Over the past several earnings-report releases, Netflix has been doling out selective metrics about the popularity of some of its programs. The company even signaled on a recent conference call that it would begin to be more transparent. Now Netflix has taken its biggest step yet, releasing its first ever Top 10 list of most-watched content, with a promise of weekly reports to follow. A list of the most watched, out weekly In a tweet on Thursday, Netflix UK and Ireland released a number of Top 10 lists regarding its most-popular programming, including the Overall Top 10 most-watched programs in the U.K. during April: We want to help you find as much ~great stuff~ to watch on Netflix as possible. So here's a look at the top ten most-watched shows and films in the UK in April 👀 — Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) May 9, 2019 Our Planet The Perfect Date The Highwaymen The Silence Black Summer After Life The Spy Who Dumped Me Riverdale Chilling Adventures of Sabrina You vs. Wild The company also provided Top 10 most-watched lists for films, series, documentaries, reality shows, and non-English-language shows in the U.K. Netflix also said it would begin releasing weekly lists to that audience beginning next week. In order to compile them, Netflix said: "We look at the most-watched individual season of a show, film or special (regardless of when it launched). 'Watched' means members finished at least 70% of one episode." The streaming giant also indicated that the move was a test and wanted to be sure the information was useful -- meaning the format or the lists are subject to change or may be discontinued. There's no official word from Netflix yet about whether the company will be following up with U.S. viewer metrics, though that's likely in the works. It's important to note that the company hasn't provided any concrete numbers to back up the lists, so this is more of a variation on what Netflix already provides via the "Trending" category on its website. A new openness? The first indicator of Netflix's evolving strategy came last year when it said in its third-quarter 2018 shareholder letter, "More than 80 million accounts have watched one or more of the Summer of Love films globally." That increasing openness continued in December when Netflix famously tweeted, "Took off my blindfold this morning to discover that 45,037,125 Netflix accounts have already watched Bird Box -- best first seven days ever for a Netflix film!" With more than 137 million subscribers worldwide at the time, that equated to nearly one-third of the company's viewers watching the program in its first week of release. Netflix followed that up in its Q4 earnings release with a host of viewership metrics about some of its most popular shows. The company disclosed that 80 million member households had watched Bird Box in its first four weeks on Netflix, You was watched by 40 million households in the same time frame, and Sex Education was "tracking" toward 40 million. This trend continued in the first quarter, when Netflix revealed that its series Umbrella Academy was watched by 45 million member households and original movie Triple Frontier was viewed by 52 million, both within the first four weeks of release on the platform. During Netflix's earnings conference call in April, an analyst noted that, for the second quarter running, the company had released a lot more information about the viewership of its programs. Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos addressed the changes: We're trying to get to a place where we could be a lot more transparent, both with our producers and with our customers. ... Over the next several months, we're going to be rolling out more specific granular data reporting first to our producers and then to our members and of course to the press over time and be more fully transparent about what people are watching on Netflix around the world. A strategic move? A number of outside companies have previously made attempts to quantify how many viewers have watched Netflix's programming, but each report has been rebuked by the company. At the same time, detractors are quick to point out that the numbers Netflix is reporting are provided without context (breakdown by country or territory, or domestic vs. international, for instance). They also complain the company is providing these figures without independent verification, which casts doubt on the veracity of the metrics. Since the platform is ad-free, there really isn't any need for Netflix to provide too much detail, and the company maintains a competitive advantage by not letting its rivals know too much. However, by increasing the amount of information it provides to producers -- who really want to know how their programs are performing -- Netflix gains a significant bargaining chip in its efforts to attract content creators. 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Netflix has historically been notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to revealing viewer numbers with the press and even with the people producing its original content. That’s been slowly changing in recent months, and it announced earlier this week that it would be testing a top-10 most viewed list for UK viewers, providing a bit of a glimpse into what its subscribers are watching. Netflix says (via Variety) that it’s testing a top-10 feature in the UK that will reveal what’s popular on its platform. The initial list for its overall most-watched programs in April has David Attenborough’s Our Planet as the most-viewed, followed by The Perfect Date, The Highway Man, The Silence, Black Summer, After Life, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and You vs. Wild. The company also breaks down top-10s for documentaries (part one, part two), film (part one, part two), non-English language shows, reality shows, and English-language TV shows. The company said it’ll start releasing the lists each week on Twitter starting next Wednesday, and that some users will see the list on Netflix directly. Variety speculates that it’ll appear as a row on the main screen. A quick FYI: to compile these lists we look at the most-watched individual season of a show, film or special (regardless of when it launched). “Watched” means members finished at least 70% of one episode. — Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) May 9, 2019 Netflix says that it determines what’s on the lists by looking “at the most-watched individual season of a show, film or special (regardless of when it launched),” and defines “watched” as finishing at least 70 percent of an episode or film. Netflix notes that it’s a test that might change over time, depending on how useful people find it. If people do find it useful (or presumably if Netflix finds that the list has a positive effect on what people are watching), it could eventually be brought to other markets around the world. The television industry lives and dies on viewership, which is studied by third-parties like Nielsen Media Research or by a network’s in-house research team. Those teams release ratings numbers, which provide a snapshot into how many people are watching any given television program at any given time. Streaming companies like Netflix have some additional advantages though, because they can gather a lot of data directly from the viewing habits of their subscribers. The company has begun revealing some hints of what it says its subscribers are watching — back in December, it reported that more than 45 million accounts watched at least 70 percent of its horror film Bird Box, and in January, it revealed some additional statistics on view data. Those are all self-reported numbers, and there’s no way to tell if they’re accurate, although Nielsen — which has been tracking Netflix data — backed up Netflix’s claims that tens of millions of people watched Bird Box. Last month, Chief content officer Ted Sarandos said that the company wants to be more transparent, and that it will begin to “more specific and granular data and reporting,” to producers, subscribers, and eventually, to the press. This top-10 list feature seems to be part of that roadmap, but there are caveats — it’s all self-reported numbers by Netflix, and unlike Nielsen’s ratings, it doesn’t indicate how many people are actually watching any given program. Still, if you take the numbers at face value, it should provide a bit of an insight into what people are watching, week-to-week.