‘Stranger Things’ Had the Biggest Premiere in Netflix History
After almost three years between new episodes, you had to wonder whether the audience would return for Stranger Things Season 4. Three years is a long time to wait for anything. The last time Netflix viewers got new Stranger Things it was 2019, months before the pandemic even began. Would fans remember what happened? Would they care what happened next?
The answer, it turns out, is a resounding yes. The premiere of Stranger Things Season 4 became, per Netflix, “the biggest premiere weekend ever for an English language TV show” on the service. Subscribers watched 286.7 million hours of Stranger Things Season 4 last week. There are 8,760 hours in a single year, which means if my math is correct — and it might not be, I’m terrible at math — last week alone Netflix customers watched 32,000 years worth of Stranger Things Season 4.
That’s a lot of Stranger Things.
And if longtime viewers didn’t quite remember what happened on previous seasons, that apparently worked out in Netflix’s favor — because all three previous seasons of Stranger Things were also among the top ten most-watched English-language shows on Netflix last week.
Here is the full top ten list on Netflix last week:
Netflix’s Top Ten Shows: May 23-29
This has to be great news for Netflix, as the long layoff between seasons apparently didn’t hurt the show’s audience one bit. It bodes well for both the end of this season — these episodes represent just the first “volume” of Season 4, with the rest of the episodes dropping on Netflix next at the start of July — and the eventual final season of the series. (The show’s creators, the Duffer brothers, have already announced the next season will be the last.) Plus, if Stranger Things 4 continues on this pace, it could easily crack the list of the most-watched Netflix shows ever in a couple more weeks’ time.