Netflix retains its market-leading position with 64.6% share of demand for global digital originals in more than 100 markets, according to data science company Parrot Analytics.

However, the global streamer’s lead is being chipped away in most markets. The 24-month platform share trend in each of the 10 markets in Parrot Analytics’ latest study, The Global Television Demand Report, shows that Netflix’s share is slowly declining.

For the first time ever, Netflix’s demand share dipped below 50% for some market/genre combinations. For action/adventure titles in the U.S. and Japan, demand for originals produced by other services pushed Netflix demand share down to around 47.5%.

The highest demand subgenres were uniform across markets, with superhero and sci-fi dramas dominating the top two positions. In seven markets, superhero series came out on front, while in three markets sci-fi dramas ranked first. The third largest subgenre was either comedy drama (six markets) or crime drama (four markets).

Drama topped demand in the two Asian markets – China and Japan – included in the report. Q1 demand share of English-language original drama series in China was 45.3%. Japan came in much lower at 38.5%. Comedy was second in both markets, running about level at 20.9% in China and 20.7% in Japan. Action-adventure was third in both, although the share of the genre in Japan was higher at 14.3% than in China at 13.5%.

China’s top three English-language original drama series in Q1 were House of Cards (Netflix) with 44 million demand expressions, Star Trek: Discovery (CBS All Access) and Narcos (Netflix), followed by The Grand Tour (Amazon) and Black Mirror (Netflix).

Netflix dominated China’s top 20, with 13 of the most in-demand titles. DC Universe had two – (Titans in seventh place) and Young Justice 13. Amazon Prime Video also had two (The Grand Tour, The Marvellous Mrs Maisel), as did Hulu, albeit lower down the list with Marvel’s Runaways at number 12 and The Handmaid’s Tale at number 20.

The most in-demand digital original series in Japan in Q1 2019 was CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Discovery. Of the 10 markets in the report, Japan was Netflix’s smallest by demand share at 60%. The report also showed that while Netflix had the largest drama original title demand share in Japan, at 55.2% it was Netflix’s smallest drama demand share of the 10 markets covered.

Published in ContentAsia Issue Four 2019, 26 August 2019