The Cheapest Piece of Research You Will Ever Run

A rating button sits beside Play on every title, on the web, in the apps and on television. Viewers tell you what worked in one tap, and the platform uses it to decide what to recommend them next.

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The Cheapest Piece of Research You Will Ever Run

Nobody Fills In a Survey. Everybody Presses a Thumb.

Ask a viewer to rate something out of five and most of them will not bother, and the ones who do will mostly give it four. Ask them whether they liked it and you get an answer, because the question takes one tap and needs no thought. That is why the whole industry moved away from star ratings, and it is why the control on a Vodlix title is a thumb rather than a scale. The value is not the score. Almost nobody looks at other people's ratings when deciding what to watch. The value is that every tap is a viewer telling you, in a way they will never bother to write down, that the thing you commissioned or licensed either landed or missed.


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One tap, no form

The control sits next to Play and Add to List, where the viewer already is. Nothing opens, nothing has to be submitted, and nobody is asked to explain themselves.

Vodlix Editor's Pick
It changes what they see

A rating is a signal, not a scoreboard. It feeds the recommendations that appear under More Like This, so the catalogue starts to arrange itself around each viewer.

Vodlix Reports and Analytics
It tells you what to buy

Watch time says a title was started. A rating says whether it was worth it. The two together are what you want in the room when the next licensing conversation happens.

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Rating Belongs Where the Decision Happens

A rating button is useless if a viewer has to go looking for it. On television it sits at the top of the actions on a title, above Play, so it is the first thing under the thumb of somebody who has just finished watching and pressed back. On the web it is a button in the same row as Play and Add to List. On a phone it is where their thumb already rests. Same signal, three different shapes, because a remote control and a touchscreen are not the same instrument. That consistency matters more than it sounds. A viewer who rates on the television and then opens the app on the train should see the effect of what they did, and they do, because the rating belongs to the account rather than to the device it was pressed on.


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Where the Taps Actually Go

More Like This is the visible half of the bargain. A viewer gives you a signal and gets a better shelf in return, which is the only honest reason to ask them for anything. The row sits on the title they just finished, so the moment somebody is deciding what to do next is the moment you answer it. Ratings are one input among several. What they finished rather than abandoned matters, and so does what they saved. Taken together with watch history and the titles they put on their list, a handful of taps is enough to stop showing somebody the same row of thrillers they have ignored for a month. Where you would rather curate by hand than let the signals decide, content lists let you place things deliberately.


The Half Your Programming Team Cares About

Viewers see better recommendations. You see something more useful than that. Every view figure you have ever looked at answers the same narrow question, which is how many people started something. It cannot tell you whether they were glad they did. A title with strong opening numbers and weak sentiment is a marketing success and a content failure, and those two need very different responses. Ratings are what separate them, and they arrive continuously rather than in a survey somebody commissions once a year. Read alongside reports and analytics, they tell you which acquisitions to renew, which originals earned a second series, and which genre your audience keeps saying yes to while your homepage keeps showing them something else. It works the same on the web, in your mobile apps and across your TV apps, so the picture is your whole audience rather than the part of it on one platform.


Frequently Asked Questions

Have questions about taking advantage of this limited-time offer? Check out the FAQ for answers.

Where does the rating button appear?
On the title itself, in the same row as Play and Add to List on the web, and at the top of the actions on television so it falls under the thumb of somebody who has just finished watching. It is deliberately not tucked into a settings screen, because a rating you have to go looking for is a rating nobody gives.
Do other viewers see how a title has been rated?
The rating is a private signal about that viewer rather than a public score displayed on the title. That is a deliberate choice. Public scores invite brigading and tend to make people rate strategically instead of honestly, which ruins the data you actually wanted.
What does a rating actually change for the viewer?
It feeds the recommendations they are shown, most visibly in the More Like This row on a title. The point is that the viewer gets something back immediately, rather than being asked for feedback that disappears into a report they will never see.
Why a thumb rather than a five star rating?
Because almost nobody uses the middle of a five point scale. In practice star ratings collapse into good or bad anyway, while asking for more precision than people have costs you responses. A single tap gets an answer from viewers who would never have rated at all.
Does rating work on television as well as the web?
Yes, and it is arguably more important there. Television is where people finish things, which is exactly when an opinion is worth asking for. The action sits in the title menu so it works with a directional pad and needs no keyboard or cursor.
Is the rating tied to the device or the account?
To the account, so somebody who rates a film on the television sees the effect when they open the app on their phone. Anything else would be confusing, because viewers do not think of themselves as having a separate relationship with each screen in the house.
How is this different from watch history?
Watch history records what happened. A rating records what somebody thought about it. A title that gets started and abandoned and a title that gets finished and loved look similar in a view count and completely different once you have sentiment beside it, which is why the two are worth reading together.
Can ratings help decide what content to acquire?
That is usually where they earn their keep. Views tell you what your marketing achieved and ratings tell you what your programming achieved, and a title that scores well on one and badly on the other needs a very different decision. Having that continuously, for every title, costs you nothing beyond switching it on.