The Nielsens for May 30 – June 5 shows Stranger Things hits new highs with phenomenal audience figures — we look at all the numbers
The Nielsens for the previous week told us the story of the opening weekend for Stranger Things season 4 volume 1, as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi. This week we see what a full week’s worth of data looks like as Stranger Things hits audience numbers we’ve not seen before. That’s not all, there’s a new entrant we’re very keen to monitor over the next few weeks…
The Nielsen data
Don’t forget, this is a few weeks ago, US only, and we add columns marked ‘*’.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | #Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Episode Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | Stranger Things | 32 | 75 | 7,203 | 96,040,000 |
| 2 | Netflix | The Lincoln Lawyer | 10 | 50 | 966 | 19,320,000 |
| 3 | Disney+ | Obi-Wan Kenobi | 3 | 45 | 958 | 21,288,889 |
| 4 | Amazon | The Boys | 19 | 60 | 949 | 15,816,667 |
| 5 | Netflix | Ozark | 44 | 60 | 644 | 10,733,333 |
| 6 | Netflix | Wrong Side Of The Tracks | 8 | 72 | 291 | 4,041,667 |
| 7 | Netflix | Grace And Frankie | 95 | 45 | 271 | 6,022,222 |
| 8 | Amazon | Night Sky | 8 | 60 | 242 | 4,033,333 |
| 9 | Netflix | Workin’ Moms | 70 | 22 | 215 | 9,772,727 |
| 10 | Netflix | The Floor Is Lava | 15 | 33 | 214 | 6,484,848 |
Stranger Things hits new highs
So. Stranger Things hits the hard to comprehend total of 7 billion minutes watched over the space of one week, just in the US. If we look at Netflix own data for the whole subscriber base (ie world-wide) for the same week, they report season 4 on its own reached 335 million hours, which is over 20 billion minutes. Adding in reported numbers for the previous three seasons brings the total to over 500 million hours, or 30 billion minutes. The US (if we can compare the Nielsen numbers, and there’s been many cases of very different views on the same show over the same period of time in the past) is around one quarter of the global audience. This show is massive everywhere!
What else happened?
Many of the same titles as last week make the chart, but there’s a new entry at#4 as Prime Video’s The Boys season 3 is released. Not quite hitting a billion minutes, it’s not far from the figures Obi-Wan Kenobi pulled in. As happens with many (most?) shows, there’s a slight dip on week 2 for Obi-Wan, but numbers are healthy.
The Lincoln Lawyer is still solid at #2 and Ozark is only slowly dropping down the numbers. There’s a bigger dip for Night Sky and numbers at the foot of the table are down on the previous.
What are we expecting next?
We expect Stranger Things to dominate for a few weeks, so our focus is on studying how Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Boys perform. The Netflix data for the US in the week June 6-12 show some new shows hitting the chart (All American and Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey). With the caveat these might not count as originals on the Nielsen list, our attention is also on Peaky Blinders as the final season arrived on Netflix.
As and when we get the numbers, we’ll bring you our unique take on what’s happening. Until next time!