Netflix and Roku are now moving away from reporting exact subscriber counts and adopting metrics similar to YouTube. Netflix announced that starting in 2025, it will no longer report user numbers and focus on metrics like watch hours.
‘We’ve evolved,’ said Netflix’s co-CEO Greg Peters, explaining that the shift allows them to highlight metrics tied to their changing revenue model, like new pricing tiers, advertising, and features such as ‘extra member.’
According to Variety, Roku plans to prioritize streaming hours as a core metric. Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos echoed this approach, calling watch hours ‘the single best indicator of member satisfaction,’ as it drives retention, growth, and profit.
This week, Roku also decided to stop reporting user counts, saying its focus is on ‘growing Platform revenue and profitability.’ As Roku expands internationally, it finds that streaming hours better represent platform success than subscriber numbers, especially since the bulk of Roku’s revenue still comes from the U.S.
These moves align Netflix and Roku with YouTube’s metrics, signaling they see YouTube as a significant competitor and want to measure up. With watch hours becoming the industry standard, platforms can better align their performance. Given varying subscription prices and user definitions across services, pure revenue and subscriber numbers are no longer enough to gauge success.
But time—an hour on YouTube is the same as an hour on Netflix, Hulu, or traditional TV. By adopting this metric, Netflix, Roku, and potentially others are setting a new standard for measuring streaming success.
YouTube now leads streaming with more viewer time than any other service.
Nielsen now ranks YouTube alongside Netflix, Disney+, and Max. This summer, YouTube became the first streaming platform to account for 10% of all TV watch time—meaning that one in ten times someone turns on their TV, they choose YouTube over traditional networks or other streaming services.
YouTube, like Nielsen, relies on watch hours as a key measure of success, and it doesn’t share individual viewer counts. Instead, revenue from its paid services—YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, and YouTube TV—is reported as a single figure without specifics.
