What the 'Tinder for TV shows and movies' has learned about what people want to watch
Ursula Coyote/AMC
So when the MightyTV app launched last year, its goal was to make that process enjoyable, by leveraging Tinder's famous "swipe left or right" interface. You tell MightyTV which services you subscribe to, and then it uses machine learning to feed you titles you might like, getting a better sense of your taste the more you swipe. (You can then add them to a unified watch list.)
The result of the MightyTV experiment is a world where preferences for shows are stripped of interfaces. For instance, Netflix isn't pushing its originals to the front of the line like it does in its own system.
And over the last few months, that natural experiment has yielded some insightful data about how having great shows and movies compares to a service's popularity.
Though 94% of MightyTV users are Netflix subscribers, Netflix titles made up only 34% of those on watch lists. Contrast this with Hulu, which only 47% of users had, but made up 23% of watch lists.
Here's a quick rundown of how each of the services stacked up on watch lists:
- Netflix: 94% of users have the service, and it makes up 34% of watch lists.
- Amazon Prime: 60% of users have, and it makes up 24% of watch lists.
- HBO: 49% of users have, and it makes up 19% of watch lists.
- Hulu: 47% of users have, and it makes up 23% of watch lists.
One big takeaway is that in the MightyTV world, Hulu definitely punches above its weight. This suggests that one main barrier for Hulu isn't having shows and movies people are interested in watching, but rather getting customers onto the service.
Quality matters
Another insight MightyTV gleaned from its data is that bigger doesn't always mean better. While HBO's catalog is small at about 850 titles, it makes up 19% of watch lists. Compare that to Amazon Prime, which has a whopping 10,000 titles on MightyTV, but makes up 24% of watch lists. "The big difference in those numbers tends to be quality," MightyTV cofounder Brian Adams told Business Insider. Almost 80% of HBO's catalog appears on at least one user's watch list, he continued.
Adams also found evidence of the "Netflix effect," or the idea that having previous seasons on streaming services can spur catch-up viewing. With "Mr. Robot," as the second season came out, the first season was made available on Amazon Prime. MightyTV saw a big spike in people adding it to watch lists.
But perhaps the most relevant data point is that many of the titles people put most on MightyTV watch lists are movies. Netflix content boss Ted Sarandos said in December that movies make up about a third of Netflix watching, whereas on MightyTV, seven of the top 10 titles most frequently put on watch lists are movies. That suggests that the problem of finding new titles to watch is more pressing for films than shows.
This makes intuitive sense: you have to find a new movie every ~2 content hours, whereas with a show you might be locked in for five or more seasons. But it also highlights that streaming movies are an area where technology that helps people more easily discover new titles might provide a lot of value.
Here are the top shows and movies people have added to their MightyTV watch lists:
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