{"id":638370,"date":"2026-04-29T11:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638370\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T11:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:57:11","slug":"australian-netflix-viewing-dominated-by-international-titles-report-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638370\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Netflix viewing dominated by international titles, report finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australians may be among Netflix\u2019s most engaged subscribers, but they spend very little time watching local stories on the platform, a new report has found.<\/p>\n

Data from analytics firm Digital i<\/a> revealed that\u00a096.4 per cent\u00a0of Netflix viewing time in Australia during 2025 was spent on non-local content, with See Saw Films\u2019\u00a0Apple Cider Vinegar\u00a0the only homegrown title to make the top ten most-watched shows.\u00a0Adolescence\u00a0topped the list, followed by\u00a0Happy Gilmore 2\u00a0and\u00a0Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The figures stand in stark contrast to Australia\u2019s Asia Pacific neighbours. In Japan, 57 per cent of viewing time was spent on local content, in South Korea, 63.9 per cent. <\/p>\n

Australian subscribers predominantly switched on to watch US-made titles, with\u00a0Emily in Paris,\u00a0Happy Gilmore 2,\u00a0and\u00a0The Rookie\u00a0the top three streams for new subscribers.\u00a0The Diplomat\u00a0S3,\u00a0Nobody Wants This\u00a0S2, and\u00a0XO, Kitty\u00a0led completion rates for the top 100 Netflix series. The highest ten titles achieved completion rates between 76.4 and 89.2 per cent \u2014 figures the report describes as reflecting \u201cstrong audience engagement at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

The export picture is similarly disparate. Some 1.3 billion hours of Australian content were consumed globally on Netflix in 2025, against 7.3 billion hours of Japanese content and 10 billion hours of South Korean content.<\/p>\n

Digital i characterises the findings as a \u201cstriking cultural divergence within the APAC region,\u201d in which Australia remains a stronghold for Western content while Japanese and South Korean audiences are increasingly turning toward domestic stories. The firm notes the shift is not only cultural but is being driven by new platform economics \u2014 viewers in Japan and South Korea \u201crapidly migrate to lower-cost, ad-supported tiers to access high-profile local \u2018appointment\u2019 viewing.\u201d <\/p>\n

The comparison between Australia and markets like Japan and South Korea is not entirely like-for-like. Australian content, typically produced in English, competes more directly with US and UK titles \u2013 a structural dynamic not addressed in the report.<\/p>\n

\"\"Deirdre Brennan at Screen Forever on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The value gap<\/p>\n

The question of how Australians engage with local content was also raised at Screen Forever this week.<\/p>\n

On a panel on Tuesday, Screen Australia CEO Deirdre Brennan offered an update on the agency\u2019s upcoming Screen Currency report \u2014 a\u00a0study assessing the sector\u2019s economic and cultural value, not revised since 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While more than 60 per cent of 2016 respondents said Australian content accounted for up to half of their media diet, Brennan said the forthcoming results paint a significantly different picture. At the same time, she said \u201cthe big headline\u201d is that Australians still value local \u201cat such a level [that] you will be delighted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is they\u2019re not necessarily making their viewing choices based on that sense of value, but we have such an opportunity \u2013 and again, thank you to our public broadcasters \u2013 to convert that value into engagement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just about the fact that they\u2019re having trouble finding it. We need to actually think about them when we\u2019re working out those unique stories that we want to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moderator Virginia Trioli didn\u2019t let the fact that Australians profess to value local content but don\u2019t watch it land quietly, declaring it the \u201cweirdest stat\u201d she\u2019d ever heard.<\/p>\n

The full Screen Currency results are due in July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australians may be among Netflix\u2019s most engaged subscribers, but they spend very little time watching local stories on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,156292,308246,435,44,309109],"class_list":["post-638370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-deirdre-brennan","tag-digital-i","tag-netflix","tag-news","tag-screen-forever-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}