User:Kingsif/useful page analytics

Wikipedia articles and tools can be useful outside of Wikipedia, for example in assessing viewer engagement with television series. As an experiment, I've looked at pageview data for articles around the release of the final season of Netflix's The House of Flowers, an already well-analyzed show.

Pageview data used in this analysis from here.



What do these pageviews show us and what can they tell us about viewer engagement?

At the start of March we can see a few days of a generally flat line in article viewership, which we can take as the norm. On March 8, there is a spike in all articles' viewership: advertising for the final season begins, and from here, the viewership trends upwards. On March 12, however, all articles see a dip below their norm. The pageviews use UTC, and so in Mexico each 24 hours on the chart straddles this day and the day before. On March 11 and 12, the COVID-19 pandemic began more rapidly spreading in Mexico, which could have affected people using Wikipedia as a one-off event, especially as the upwards trend continues from the next day. On March 13, also, Aislinn Derbez spikes in views; her divorce was announced, an outside influence, and which creates a higher norm line.

Almost all of the articles experience an increase in viewership at the same apparent rate. That is, they all follow the same upward trajectory rather than having the same number of additional views or the same number of total views. This suggests that the perceived importance/relevance/interest of each of the article subjects has not changed with the increased coverage. Additionally, the viewership of Verónica Castro stays around its norm and does not trend upwards in viewership until mid-April: Castro does not star in the final season and may not have been perceived by viewers as relevant earlier in the cycle. From this point in mid-April, Castro's page viewership per day becomes almost identical to that of Cecilia Suárez, perhaps reflecting the subjects' status as the show's leads.

There are various dips and falls shown, and from April 9 these are all in sync across the selected articles, suggesting that the increased viewership is influenced by the same sources. By this point, all trailers had been released and coverage of the new season would be largely independent of marketing until April 20 (in Mexico). This corresponds to April 20 and 21 on the graph, which shows no consistent peak or fall across the articles, suggesting the April 20 special had little effect on engagement, except for Manolo Caro, which saw a large jump in viewers – this is possibly because Caro was hosting the special and so the most visible.

Pageviews for all the articles drops by a handful on April 22, before jumping up on April 23 – the day of the season's release – and into a curve that they all roughly follow. The peak of articles views for The House of Flowers (TV series) occurred on April 24, while the peak for all the other articles was on April 26. This could suggest that Netflix viewers become interested in finding out about the show when they start watching, and then more viewers become interested and search the people involved a few days later, which may be when they get 'hooked' and seek more engagement, or when they finish watching. However, it could also have been influenced by the release of a tie-in special on YouTube on April 26.

Notably, while most of the articles do not see deviation from the most-viewed total, some do. Aislinn Derbez and Cecilia Suárez were the two most-viewed articles (besides the main), but are both overtaken by Paco León and Verónica Castro; Paco León indeed jumps from fourth to first. This could be because the subject of Paco León has more international appeal than the others, or because there may be a greater interest in the relevant character. The character interest could also be the reason for increase in viewers to Castro's page, based on a younger version of her character being praised in the season, and the possibility that she appears in the final episode, something which interested viewers may be searching to find out. Aislinn Derbez, while following the same curve, does not noticeable increase in viewership from its new norm, possibly because her character played a smaller role in the season. Juan Pablo Medina is probably the exemplary line, with no outside influences or particular character status throughout the period of the data.

References