Bridgerton tops Netflix most-watched list

Lady Whistledown’s secret is out…

Netflix has released data on its most popular titles in a move to offer more transparency.

Speaking onstage at Vox Media’s Code Conference in Beverly Hills co-CEO Ted Sarandos revealed Bridgerton has ranked as Netflix’s most popular series by both the number of accounts that watched them in their first 28 days, and the numbers of hours that they were watched in that timeframe.

A total of 82 million accounts tuned into the title (for a span of at least two minutes) in the first four weeks that it was available, and for a total duration of 625 million hours watched.

Series:

Rankings by No. of Households Sampling a Title (First 28 Days of Release)
1. Bridgerton S1 – 82 million
2. Lupin Pt1 – 76 million
3. The Witcher S1 – 76 million
4. Sex / Life S1 – 67 million
5. Stranger Things S3 – 67 million
6. Money Heist Pt4 – 65 million
7. Tiger King S1 – 64 million
8. The Queen’s Gambit – 62 million
9. Sweet Tooth S1 – 60 million
10. Emily in Paris S1 – 58 million

Rankings by Overall Time Spent Viewing (First 28 Days of Release)
Based on number of hours watched
1. Bridgerton S1 – 625 million hours
2. Money Heist Pt4 – 619 million hours
3. Stranger Things S3 – 582 million hours
4. The Witcher S1 – 541 million hours
5.13 Reasons Why S2 – 496 million hours
6.13 Reasons Why S1 – 476 million hours
7. You S2 – 457 million hours
8. Stranger Things S2 – 427 million hours
9. Money Heist Pt3 – 426 million hours
10. Ginny & Georgia S1 – 381 million hours

On the film front, action thriller Extraction and the horror flick Bird Box took the top honours, with the former ranking as most watched by number of accounts (99 million) and the latter viewed for the most hours (282 million hours) over their first four weeks on the streaming platform.

Film:

Rankings by No. of Households Sampling a Title (First 28 Days of Release)
1. Extraction – 99 million
2. Bird Box – 89 million
3. Spenser Confidential – 85 million
4. 6 Underground – 83 million
5. Murder Mystery – 83 million
6. The Old Guard – 78 million
7. Enola Holmes – 77 million
8. Project Power – 75 million
9. Army of the Dead – 74 million
10. Fatherhood – 74 million

Rankings by Overall Time Spent Viewing (First 28 Days of Release)
1. Bird Box – 282 million hours
2. Extraction – 231 million hours
3. The Irishman – 215 million hours
4. The Kissing Booth 2 – 209 million hours
5. 6 Underground – 205 million hours
6. Spenser Confidential – 197 million hours
7. Enola Holmes – 190 million hours
8. Army of the Dead – 187 million hours
9. The Old Guard – 186 million hours

Despite heightened competition from streaming rivals like Disney, Apple and Amazon, Sarandos said Netflix maintains an advantage with its more than 200 million subscribers.

“In the U.S. where we’re most penetrated, 25% of the time that you’re watching TV, you’re watching streaming—and 25% of that time, you’re watching Netflix,” Sarandos said. “This is an enormous shift. You can see how difficult it is now for a broadcaster to find an audience on their network, and how hard it is for anyone to break into the zeitgeist.”

Source: Fortune