On the 21st January 2026 Netflix released their report “what we watched in the 2nd half of 2025” (here).
I analysed the “1st half of 2025” report (here) so won’t repeat the explanations around how the data slotted together.
Removed from the Netflix report
I’ve been looking at the Netflix data for comedy specials for a couple of years now and don’t remember, with previous reports, noticing so many specials being removed from the report – are they still on the platform??
- It had been clear, in the previous viewing period, that these specials were not being viewed much as they had the lowest total possible of 100,000 hours viewed
- Some had been on Netflix from as long ago as 2010
78 specials have disappeared from this report – I’ll just highlight a few:
- Neal Brennan (1)
- Pete Davidson (2)
- Greg Davies (2)
- Chris D’Elia (3)
- Tim Dillon (2)
- Jeff Dunham (3)
- Hannah Gadsby (3)
- Mo Gilligan (2)
- Kevin Hart (2)
- Russell Howard (1)
- Sean Lock (3)
- Demetri Martin (3)
- Chris McCausland (1)
- Michael McIntyre (2)
- Sam Morril (1)
- Patton Oswalt (4)
- Romesh Ranganthan (1)
- Katherine Ryan (1)
- Amy Schumer (3)
- Tom Segura (1)
- Phil Wang (2)
With Sean Lock and Chris McCausland – they had only appeared in the first half of 2025 and clearly were not getting enough views to register.
Neal Brennan lost one of Jimmy’s favourites (3 Mics) – but nice to see Fern Brady hanging in there.
Jimmy Carr Specials
- Mar 2016 – Funny Business – here
- Mar 2019 – Ultimate Gold – here
- Dec 2021 – His Dark Material – here
- Apr 2024 – Natural Born Killer – here
As mentioned in the previous stats analysis – the problem we have here is that the Netflix data only starts Jan 2023 (for hours viewed) and July 2023 (for Views) and so the first of these 3 specials had the bulk of their viewing figures before counting started.
Looking at Jan 2023 to Dec 2025 the 4 of them were viewed for a total of 12.6m viewed hours, up from 11.4m hours 6 months ago.
- Funny Business – 1.7m (3,571 days since release)
- Ultimate Gold – 1.7m (2,482 days)
- His Dark Material – 3.5m (1,463 days)
- Natural Born Killer – 5.7m (620 days)
Natural Born Killer had added the most viewed hours (500,000).
And “Views” are July 2023 to Dec 2025:
- Funny Business – 1.2m
- Ultimate Gold – 2.3m
- His Dark Material – 5.7m
- Natural Born Killer – 1.2m
Which comes to 10.4m
Specials With Most “Hours Viewed”
The Brits cannot really compete with the American specials (bigger demographic to target) so this first image just shows Brit-specials.
There are 39 Brit Specials (out of 282) and these are just the ones with over 1m hours viewed.
I’ve left Excel’s row numbers on the left so you can see that the first entry (Armageddon) is at number 8 (don’t forget to take 1 away, to account for the header row).
Jimmy’s most recent special (Natural Born Killer) is at 48.
If we then look at the full list, of 282, and the ones over 10m – some BIG numbers from our American cousins.
There are a few anomalies though, when you look at Hours Viewed, as Chris Rock’s special had a runtime of 1 hour 10 – meaning it had only 4.1m views. A bit out of step with the 41m “hours viewed”…
What this means is that the “hours viewed” figure favours a special that is over an hour – even if only by a couple of minutes as Netflix rounds up to a 2nd hour.
Total Views per special?
If we look instead at “total views” this is perhaps a better indicator.
Jimmy’s Natural Born Killer has moved up from 48 (image above) to 27 (image below). That’s because it was exactly 1 hour long.
Note that the images below all say from “July 2023”? The 2023 reports had no data for Jan to June.
These are the ones over 5m.
Total Views per comedian?
Another way to view the data is to add up the figures per comedian. So, for example, Jimmy’s 4 specials have a combined total of 10.4m Views, putting him in 19th place.
Total Views, per comedian, Post Jan 2016
One problem with some of this data only started from mid-way through 2023 is compounded by specials covering a 16-year timeframe.
This view has had all specials before January 2016 removed (just for the hell of it, to see what it did to the ranking).
With all of his 4 specials still within the timeframe Jimmy moves from 19th to 16th and we are down to 36 comedians, with 117 specials between them.
Total Views, per comedian, Post Jan 2021
This next version removes everything before January 2021.
This leaves Jimmy with only his 2 more recent specials, but still in 16th place. Still 36 comedians, bit now with only 67 specials between them.
Total Views, per comedian, Post Jan 2023
Now a more radical chop – only the specials that were uploaded from January 2023.
This one has switched around Chappelle and Rife (at the top) and a big beneficiary is Tom Segura (from 7th to 4th). Ricky Gervais moves from 4th to 5th, with only 2 specials (1 of which was released in December).
Jimmy meanwhile has gone from 16th to 21st, with just Natural Born Killer in this timeframe.
In this view we were down to 32 comedians with 42 specials between them.
Summary
Fiddling around with views (by excluding different years) still doesn’t tell us a massive amount other than the Top 10 specials are still the Top 10 specials.
But it does show (a little bit) that some of the very old specials tend to skew the listings.
Micky Flanagan, for example, started out with 2 specials with 1.1m views each. But one is from 2011 and one from 2013 so they dropped straight out, when I filtered from January 2016.
This report in particular would mean nothing to Mr C as he’s not got a dog in the race.
Netflix or YouTube?
The other question would be “which platform gets most eyeballs – Netflix or YouTube?”
- If Jimmy’s 4 Netflix specials got 1.2m views in 6 months that’s a daily average of about 6,666
- If I look at his main YouTube account the daily average views is more like 2.8m
I’ve no idea how much Netflix pay for specials but Jimmy’s heckle amnesty crowd work videos are certainly getting watched more.
Would be interesting to have a new special to do a comparison on!
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