Just a week after the premiere of Stranger Things season three, the hit Netflix show is still spurring conversations about which characters are the worst, which ones are still alive, and what might happen in season four. These discussions and debates notwithstanding, one of the things that everyone — and especially Netflix itself — seems to agree about is the fact that Stranger Things is still a hit. After all, per the streamer’s internal (and highly secretive) numbers, the season three premiere broke a viewing record in four days.
Of course, this is based entirely on Netflix’s own numbers, the details of which have never been released for the purpose of third-party verification. What’s more, the platform only offers hints as to who’s watching what (and how many people are watching it) whenever the show or film in question is a hit. Enter Nielsen, the ratings organization that has provided viewing figures for broadcast and cable television for decades. They’ve been applying a modified version of their SVOD (subscription video on demand) process to Netflix and other streamers for some time now, and they’ve got some new Stranger Things results.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, an average of 12.8 million viewers watched Stranger Things season three during its first four days on Netflix. The first episode specifically garnered 19.17 million views and six of the season’s eight episodes managed to surpass the 10 million mark. This means that, when compared to Nielsen’s viewing figures for season two, the new season nabbed a 21 percent increase in average viewing numbers. When compared to other TV figures compiled for the week of July 1st, the premiere’s first-day number of 8.86 million comes in second only to the Women’s World Cup final, which garnered 14 million.
This is great news for Stranger Things, and especially for those fans and critics who are eager to find out what that post-credits scene was all about in season four. Then again, as Netflix has said before of Nielsen’s attempts to qualify its own viewing numbers, “measurements by third parties aren’t accurate as they don’t take into account viewing on other devices, nor do they cover the streamer’s global reach.” So… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
