In 2018, my documentary American Circumcision trended on Netflix. It was on the platform for 1.5 years. Netflix does not release viewership data, so I never knew exactly how many people saw it, but based on the amount I saw on social media and the fact Netflix had 139 million subscribers in 2018 I knew it was a lot.
Since 2018, Netflix has released more data for its trending films — data that an AI could use to estimate the likely viewership of a previous trending film. To get an estimate for how many saw the documentary, I asked ChatGPT “How many views would a film have needed to trend on Netflix in 2018?” It wrote:
In 2018, a film needed around 10-15 million views within its first week to trend on Netflix, based on viewership patterns and competition at the time.
When I followed up with the question: “If a documentary film trended in 2018 and was on the platform for 1.5 years, how many likely saw it?” it replied:
If a documentary trended in 2018 and was on Netflix for 1.5 years, it likely received 50-100 million views, considering its initial popularity and continued accessibility on the platform.
American Circumcision likely received 10-15 million views in the first week and 50-100 million during its run on Netflix.
Of course, this is just according to AI. Only Netflix has exact numbers.
P.S. You can watch the film for free when you subscribe here.
Congratulations Brendon. Your documentary makes a powerful impression.