Netflix has revealed in its Q3 2019 earnings report that Stranger Things set a viewing record with its third season, which helped with its comeback after a disappointing second quarter.
In the report, the streaming giant said that season three was viewed over 64 million times in the four weeks following its premiere on July 4. This makes it Netflix’s most-watched original series of all time.
According to the report, a view is counted by Netflix as a member household watching 70 percent of a single episode in a series, or 70 percent of a feature film.
The huge numbers for the latest season of Stranger Things aren’t too much of a surprise, as Netflix said that 40.7 million member accounts worldwide had viewed the show less than a week after its July release. This was the fastest a Netflix original had ever generated an audience of this size.
Netflix began highlighting worldwide view numbers for selected content in its Q4 2018 earnings report, with the previous record being 45 million over a four week period for The Umbrella Academy.
Interestingly, the way Netflix counts a view per member household for TV series could mean that not all who viewed the latest season of Stranger Things actually got through the full series. This is because, in a footnote in the Q4 2018 shareholders letter, Netflix states that ‘due to [the] highly variable length [of each TV series], we count a viewer if they substantially complete one episode (70 percent).’
That being said, as Stranger Things is clearly a show that will bring in new subscribers and keep existing ones, this explains why Netflix has signed a huge deal with showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer so they can continue producing content for the streaming platform.
A figure which was notably missing from the viewing data was from Orange Is The New Black’s final season, which made its debut in late July. While Netflix did acknowledge that the show had been important for setting the company up as a hub for ambitious series, details of viewing numbers were not included in the report.
