Plays

A play is counted when the viewer sees the first frame of video.

Updated 2026-08-07 plays

A play is counted when the viewer sees the first frame of video.

This metric counts the number of plays that started in the current interval, and does not include unsuccessful play attempts. Unsuccessful play attempts count as Video Start Failures (VSF) or Exits Before Video Start (EBVS).

This metric shows the number of plays that started in the intervals of the selected time period.

Plays equation — plays equals the sum of started plays over the interval

As a percentage, this metric shows the percentage of Attempts that resulted in plays in the selected interval.

Plays percentage equation — percent plays equals the sum of started plays divided by the sum of attempts

Plays is a 'Started' type metric and is counted in the interval in which the play started. For more information, see the Metric Dictionary.

Plays is available in the following formats:

  • Plays — the total number of plays that started during the selected time period.
  • Plays content summary — the total number of plays that started during the selected time period for the top content assets.
  • Plays time series — a time series for the selected time period, where each point is the number of plays during that specific interval.

The number of plays is also shown as a percent of attempts in the current interval, in the Plays (% of Attempts) metric.

Metric Detail Description
Dashboards and Metric Presentation Trends, Overview, Real-Time, MetricLens, Top Rising Content
Dimensions Use MetricLens dimensions to filter this metric by metadata segments for enhanced root cause analysis. For example, limiting data to specific ISP and player dimensions can narrow the root cause of changes in Plays to a known provider and player type.
Diagnostics No.
Manual Alert Support No.
AI Alert Support No.
Metric Adjustments Playing states with less than 200 ms of continuous playing time are considered false playing states and not counted as plays. This adjustment also improves the accuracy of other metrics, such as VST, VSF, and VPT.
Revived sessions that play successfully also contribute to Attempts, Plays, and Ended Plays. Revived sessions do not contribute to VST, EBVS, and VSF. For more details about revived sessions, see Session Timeout / Expiration.

For more metric definitions, see the Metric Dictionary.