Netflix refuses to release viewership figures…

Netflix has become a major player in the Hollywood award season, including garnering multiple nominations for this year’s Oscars. But how many people are actually watching the shows?

We don’t know, because Netflix won’t say.

In an industry in which TV ratings and box office stats are the lifeblood of business, the streaming entertainment titan plays by its own rules, keeping its viewer statistics out of sight and making it difficult for outsiders to measure the success of its shows.

Recently, Netflix has revealed some fuzzy performance figures for a handful of projects, among them the former Lifetime series “You,” the Spanish-language teen drama “Elite” and, most prominently, the science fiction thriller “Bird Box,” which the company said had been seen by more than 45 million accounts in its first week.

But these are the exceptions. Viewership numbers for Netflix’s hundreds of other original series and movies remain corporate secrets.

As the company continues to grow, this game of peekaboo has become increasingly irksome to other studios as well as talent agencies, some of which feel that Netflix’s lack of transparency gives it an unfair competitive advantage.

Despite pressure on Netflix to disclose more data, experts say, it has little motivation to be more open, in part because it doesn’t answer to advertisers that normally would demand such information.

“Netflix frankly doesn’t have to tell anybody anything about the viewing of any of their stuff because they don’t have to,” said Tim Hanlon, chief executive of the Chicago-based media advisory and investment firm the Vertere Group.

Netflix also faces rising costs associated with content licensed from other studios, and disclosing ratings on popular shows would likely lead to even higher licensing fees. Older favorites such as “Friends,” “The Office” and “Breaking Bad” are major draws for Netflix subscribers and continue to bring in big business. Netflix recently paid more than $100 million to Warner Bros. to retain the exclusive streaming rights to “Friends” for an additional year, more than three times what it had previously paid.

Netflix declined to comment for this story.

Companies that license shows to Netflix receive basic viewership data, but executives say the information isn’t useful.

“We get a compilation of views by season, so it’s not divided out by episode, and there’s no indication of what a view even means — like how long the duration,” said one network executive who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly. “From an analysis standpoint, it’s meaningless.”

Netflix also doesn’t publicly reveal box office figures for the handful of prestige movies it releases in cinemas, among them “Roma,” which got 10 Oscar nominations, including the streamer’s first best picture nod, and “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” which received three. The choice not to release ticket sales was made by Netflix, not the theater owners, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Original Article

Bronx lawmaker: City Council is ‘controlled by the homosexual community’

A Bronx city council member said he was treated as an outsider by the chamber because it’s “controlled by the homosexual community,” according to a new report.

“When I get to the City Council, I find that the City Council is controlled — most council members out of 51 council members — over there, everybody is controlled by the homosexual community,” Rubén Díaz Sr. said in an interview with a spanish-language TV program geared toward cab drivers, NY1 reported.

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is gay, called on Diaz to apologize after the NY1 report.

“Council Member Díaz Sr.’s homophobic comments are offensive to both the Speaker and the body, and have no place in New York City,” his communications director told the station in a statement.

“He should apologize to all of his colleagues, and the entire LGBTQ community.”

Díaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister, has vocally opposed same-sex marriage and has been criticized for past homophobic statements.

Original Article

 

Family Tree DNA Testing Company Sharing Genetic Data With the FBI

The decision by a prominent consumer DNA-testing company to share data with federal law enforcement means investigators have access to genetic information linked to hundreds of millions of people.

FamilyTreeDNA, an early pioneer of the rapidly growing market for consumer genetic testing, confirmed late Thursday that it has granted the Federal Bureau of Investigation access to its vast trove of nearly 2 million genetic profiles. The arrangement was first reported by BuzzFeed News.

Concerns about unfettered access to genetic information gathered by testing companies have swelled since April, when police used a genealogy website to ensnare a suspect in the decades-old case of the Golden State Killer. But that site, GEDmatch, was open-source, meaning police were able to upload crime-scene DNA data to the site without permission. The latest arrangement marks the first time a commercial testing company has voluntarily given law enforcement access to user data.

 

Original Article

despite its big earnings is Facebook going down?

…The Facebook Research VPN app put on you’re smart phone, sucks up all incoming and outgoing data. Not just Facebook data — all data, from web browsing to texting to activity on other apps. According to TechCruch, “Facebook went so far as to ask users to screenshot and submit their Amazon order history.”

So who has a problem with Facebook paying people to harvest their data?

Apple, that’s who.

With its pay-to-play research app, Facebook broke those rules. The Cupertino boys weren’t happy.

Punishment was swift — Apple revoked Facebook’s access to its “enterprise developer” program…

Read Full

Life under ISIS led these Muslims to Christianity

“If heaven is made for ISIS and their belief,” said one convert, “I would choose hell for myself instead of being again with them in the same place, even if it’s paradise.”

“If ISIS represents Islam, I don’t want to be a Muslim anymore,” Farhad Jasim, 23, who attends the Church of the Brethren, told NBC News. “Their God is not my God.”

Read Full

Random Events, Free Will, Pre-destiny or Something Darker ?