A watchlist is a list of films, series and sometimes live events that a viewer has saved to watch at a later date. The viewer adds a title with a single button, the service stores it against the account or profile, and the list reappears as a row or tab the next time the app opens. Netflix calls it My List, Roku calls it Save List, and Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, Google TV, IMDb, Letterboxd and JustWatch all use the word watchlist itself. The feature exists because streaming catalogues are too large to browse in one sitting. It also gives the operator something valuable: a record of what a person wants to watch before they have watched it.

The term has no single industry meaning. Sanctions screening, piracy enforcement and investing all use it, but in PPC Land's coverage the streaming and TV sense dominates, and it is the subject here.

How a watchlist works

A title page carries an add button, often a plus sign or a bookmark. Pressing it writes a record linking a content identifier to a profile identifier, with a timestamp. Removing the title, or finishing it, deletes or flags that record. On most services the list is private by default; IMDb, for instance, keeps watchlists private unless the member changes the setting, according to the IMDb Help Center.

The design choices sit underneath. Ordering is the first. When Netflix replaced its manually sorted Instant Queue with My List in August 2013, the new list sorted titles by predicted likelihood of viewing rather than by the order in which they were added, according to Advanced Television's report of the launch. Scope is the second. A list held inside one app covers that app's catalogue only. A list held by the device or operating system can span every service installed on it. Google TV's watchlist, introduced on September 30, 2020, could be filled from Google Search on a phone or laptop and then appeared on the television, according to a Google blog post by Shalini GovilPai, then senior director for Google TV.

Amazon's September 30, 2025 Fire TV event introduced a unified watchlist that consolidates titles from multiple streaming services into one interface. By June 2026, the rebuilt Fire TV software let viewers add an on-screen title to a watchlist by voice, or from a phone outside the home.

Adjacent states are the third choice. Services separate a watchlist from Continue Watching, which tracks partly viewed titles, and from reminders for titles not yet released. Netflix's Remind Me button, introduced in August 2019, sends a notification when a title arrives. Apple merged these functions for years under Up Next, then split them: the iOS 18.1 update in October 2024 renamed Up Next as Continue Watching and added a separate Watchlist section holding only titles the user had explicitly saved, according to 9to5Mac.

Where the data goes

A watchlist entry is a stated preference with no money attached. That makes it different from a viewing record, which shows behaviour, and from a purchase, which shows commitment. For operators it feeds three systems. Recommendation engines use saved titles as positive signals. Notification systems use them to trigger alerts when a new season lands. Commissioning and acquisition teams use aggregate add counts as a gauge of demand before release.

The advertising use is mostly indirect. No field in the OpenRTB protocol, which carries programmatic bid requests, describes whether a viewer has saved a title. Watchlist data therefore stays first-party, and reaches advertisers through the platform's own audience products. Amazon's November 2025 release of Prime Video viewership signals in Amazon Marketing Cloud covered content title, content type and show-level engagement; Amazon did not list watchlist status among them.

Independent guides have been more explicit. JustWatch founder and chief executive David Croyé wrote in December 2017 that the company collected anonymous taste data on "more than 100 million movie and TV show fans" and used it to retarget film fans with trailers on YouTube and Facebook for studios including Sony Pictures and Universal. TV Time, a tracking app with 12 million registered users, launched an analytics product for studios called TVLytics in July 2018, according to TechCrunch. When JustWatch announced its own viewing service in September 2026, PPC Land described the company's data asset as built from years of search and watchlist behaviour.

Origin and evolution

The idea predates streaming. Netflix's DVD-by-post subscription, launched in 1999, depended on a ranked queue: subscribers listed the discs they wanted and the company mailed them in order. When streaming arrived in January 2007, the Instant Queue applied the same logic to on-demand titles. My List followed on August 21, 2013. Michael Spiegelman, then Netflix's director of product innovation, called it "a new way to save titles to your own row on Netflix." In May 2025 Netflix moved My List, Continue Watching and Remind Me into a single My Netflix hub as part of its first major TV redesign in over a decade.

Device platforms then took the list away from individual apps. Roku added a platform-wide Save List in September 2022 with OS 11.5, a feature its May 2026 home screen redesign brought closer to the surface for more than 100 million US households. Letterboxd, founded in Auckland in 2011, added a social dimension and reported more than 30 million members in July 2026.

Why it matters for marketers

Discovery has become a measurable cost. Gracenote research cited by Amazon put the time US viewers spend searching for something to watch at about 12 minutes, up from 10.5 minutes in 2023. A separate Gracenote study in April 2026 put the average at 14 minutes, and found 54 per cent of 18 to 34 year olds would cancel a subscription if they could not find something to watch. TiVo data for late 2025 showed households averaging more than 10 video services, with 40 per cent checking two or three apps before choosing.

The list also anchors loyalty. Hub Entertainment Research found in August 2026 that 68 per cent of US viewers had made their default service "their own" through a profile, watchlist or saved preferences, rising to 79 per cent among those under 35. Jon Giegengack, a principal at Hub, said the data "illustrates why streaming's metric of success is shifting from subscriber numbers to engagement."

Whoever owns the cross-service list owns the starting point of the evening. That is why television manufacturers and operating systems, which sell home screen advertising at power-on, have invested in watchlists that sit above the apps.

Limitations and disputes

Signal quality is the first weakness. Adding a title costs nothing, so lists swell with aspirations never acted on. A saved title shows interest, not viewing.

Privacy is the larger dispute. In the United States, the Video Privacy Protection Act, signed on November 5, 1988 after a Washington newspaper printed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's rental history, protects records identifying a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials. It provides liquidated damages of at least $2,500 per violation, and plaintiffs have argued that a pixel sending a video title to Facebook is a disclosure. The statute does not mention lists of titles a person intends to watch. Netflix's own history shows the stakes. Researchers Arvind Narayanan and Vitaly Shmatikov showed in 2008 that supposedly anonymous ratings released for the Netflix Prize could be re-identified by matching them with public IMDb ratings, and Netflix cancelled a planned second contest in March 2010 after a lawsuit and inquiries from the Federal Trade Commission.

Television-level collection has drawn enforcement too. Texas sued five manufacturers in December 2025 over automatic content recognition, and Samsung settled by March 2026, agreeing to stop collecting such data from Texans without explicit consent.

Fragmentation remains unresolved. In-app lists do not travel between services. IMDb, owned by Amazon, still keeps its watchlist separate from Prime Video's, according to its help pages.

Not the same as

Continue Watching tracks titles already started; a watchlist holds titles not yet begun. Viewing history is a log of completed behaviour, and is the record the VPPA was written to protect.

Sanctions watch lists are government lists of blocked parties. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control, formally created in December 1950, maintains the Specially Designated Nationals list. Google applies OFAC sanctions to its advertising systems and removed Syria from its restricted territories in August 2025.

Piracy watch lists name infringing websites and markets. The European Commission published its first Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List on December 7, 2018 and its latest on May 22, 2025.

Financial watchlists track shares and other securities. Google Finance requires a signed-in account to create custom watchlists.

Recent developments

Discovery is shifting to voice assistants. Amazon's Alexa+ handles title search by voice on Fire TV, and Amazon reported in August 2026 that users picked Alexa's top recommendation over 40 per cent more often than with the original Alexa, a self-reported figure without disclosed methodology. Accuracy remains a concern: Gracenote found an ungrounded AI model fabricated every measured attribute for 19.5 per cent of 2,600 titles in June 2026.

Guides are becoming distributors. JustWatch, which reports more than 50 million monthly users, is opening JustWatch TV in 12 countries in October 2026. Letterboxd drew reported interest from Netflix, Sony Pictures and Paramount Skydance in July 2026. Fox agreed to buy Roku on June 15, 2026, at an enterprise value of $22bn. On the legal side, the Supreme Court hears Salazar v. Paramount Global on October 14, 2026, a case that will decide who counts as a "consumer" under the VPPA.

Timeline

  • December 1950 - OFAC is formally created after China enters the Korean War.
  • November 5, 1988 - The Video Privacy Protection Act is signed into US law.
  • 1999 - Netflix launches its DVD subscription, built around a ranked rental queue.
  • January 2007 - Netflix begins streaming; the Instant Queue follows.
  • 2008 - Narayanan and Shmatikov re-identify Netflix Prize ratings using IMDb data.
  • March 2010 - Netflix cancels a second Netflix Prize after a lawsuit and FTC inquiries.
  • 2011 - Letterboxd is founded in Auckland.
  • August 21, 2013 - Netflix replaces the Instant Queue with My List.
  • February 2015 - JustWatch launches its website in the US and Germany.
  • December 6, 2017 - JustWatch describes its audience business for film studios.
  • July 31, 2018 - TV Time launches TVLytics for studios and distributors.
  • December 7, 2018 - The European Commission publishes its first Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List.
  • August 2019 - Netflix introduces Remind Me.
  • September 30, 2020 - Google TV launches with a watchlist that can be filled from Google Search.
  • September 2022 - Roku adds Save List in OS 11.5.
  • October 2024 - Apple splits Watchlist from Continue Watching in iOS 18.1.
  • May 7, 2025 - Netflix moves My List into the My Netflix hub on TV.
  • August 2025 - Google removes Syria from its advertising sanctions list.
  • September 30, 2025 - Amazon introduces a unified cross-service watchlist on Fire TV.
  • November 11, 2025 - Prime Video viewership signals reach Amazon Marketing Cloud.
  • January 26, 2026 - The Supreme Court agrees to hear Salazar v. Paramount Global.
  • May 27, 2026 - Roku's redesigned home screen begins rolling out.
  • June 22, 2026 - Amazon rebuilds Fire TV software with voice and mobile watchlist additions.
  • August 2026 - Hub Entertainment Research surveys 1,600 US viewers on default services.
  • September 15, 2026 - JustWatch announces JustWatch TV for 12 countries.
  • October 14, 2026 - Supreme Court argument in Salazar v. Paramount Global.

Summary

Who. Streaming services including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV keep watchlists inside their apps. Device platforms such as Google TV, Fire TV and Roku keep cross-service versions, and guides including JustWatch, IMDb, Letterboxd and TV Time hold lists independent of any service.

What. A saved list of titles a viewer intends to watch, stored against an account or profile and used to drive recommendations, alerts and demand forecasting. It records intent rather than viewing, and no programmatic protocol field carries it.

When. The idea traces to Netflix's DVD queue in 1999, moved online with the Instant Queue in 2007, took its current form with My List on August 21, 2013, and spread across devices from 2020 onward.

Where. On television home screens, mobile apps and websites, with in-app lists limited to one catalogue and platform lists spanning many. Privacy rules differ by market, from the VPPA in the United States to consent requirements in Europe.

Why. Catalogues are too large to browse, and US viewers spend between 10.5 and 14 minutes searching depending on the study. The list shortens that search, ties viewers to a default service, and gives whoever holds it a first-party record of demand that operators, studios and advertisers all want.