The first batch of Season 4 episodes from Netflix juggernaut Stranger Things propelled the series to an all-time record for US streaming in a single week, Nielsen said.
All 32 episodes of the show racked up 7.2 billion minutes of streaming from May 30 to June 5. That’s the most of any title since Nielsen began tracking streaming in 2020, soaring well above the previous record established by Netflix’s Tiger King in March 2020.
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The final two episodes of Stranger Things 4 went live today and figure to give the overall show a significant boost when the numbers are released later in July. Netflix and the Duffer Bros, the show’s co-creators and showrunners, have announced that it will end after its fifth season, though storylines are due to be explored via spinoffs.
The Season 4 episodes premiered on May 27, as did Star Wars spinoff Obi-Wan Kenobi. The two titles already had been identified as breakthrough originals in a stand-alone Nielsen report last month.
By the week of May 30-June 5, Obi-Wan had three episodes available due to Disney’s gradual, non-binge release model. The show’s audience was two-thirds male, Nielsen said, making it the most male-skewing title of the week. Age-wise, it was fairly evenly split across the 18-34, 35-49 and 50-64-year-old groups.
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The Boys on Prime Video finished within a whisker of Obi-Wan, with 949 million minutes of viewing. Following it in the No. 5 slots, was Harry Potter franchise spinoff sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore on HBO Max with 758M minutes. Apart from a one-off report on Wonder Woman 1984 in December 2020, this week marked the kickoff to Warner Bros Discovery’s HBO Max being officially tracked by Nielsen.
Along with HBO Max, Nielsen measures viewing only via a TV screen for Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, Apple TV+, Hulu and Disney+. (Mobile viewing is not counted.) The company typically releases weekly numbers on Thursdays, but the latest numbers were held up for eight extra days, with Nielsen attributing the delay to what it called “product enhancements.”
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The weekly chart for May 23-29 also had Stranger Things dominating, with 5.14 billion minutes of viewing. the first two Obi-Wan episodes collected 1.03 billion minutes, good for third place.
Here is the full top 10 for May 30 to June 5:
Stranger Things (Netflix) – 32 episodes, 7.2 billion minutes of viewing
all american (Netflix) – 71 eps., 1,253B minutes
The Lincoln Lawyer (Netflix) – 10 eps., 966M minutes
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+) – 3 eps., 958M minutes
The Boys (Prime Video) – 19 eps., 949M minutes
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (HBO Max) – movie, 758M minutes
NCIS (Netflix) – 354 eps., 692M minutes
Ozark (Netflix) – 44 eps., 644M minutes
Cocomelon (Netflix) – 18 eps., 615M minutes
Criminal Minds (Netflix) – 321 eps., 558 minutes