Peaky Blinders' loss is Stranger Things' gain in Netflix's weekly rankings
It's Stranger Things' world, we're just living in it
The arrival of Peaky Blinders' sixth and final season on Netflix has been much anticipated. But, when it comes to its placing in the streamer's global Top 10, the show has only found itself in fifth position.
Netflix has been publishing a weekly list detailing its most popular TV shows over a seven-day period since November 2021. The list ranks titles based on weekly hours viewed – i.e. the total number of hours subscribers globally watched each title between Monday and Sunday of the previous week, with Netflix sharing four separate lists; two for movies (English and Non-English) and two for TV shows (English and Non-English).
Netflix considers each season of a given series as standalone entities so, occasionally, so you might see two of seasons of the best Netflix shows make the cut in the same week That's exactly what has happened here, only it's not two seasons of the same show – it's four and that show is, unsurprisingly, Stranger Things.
The first instalment of the fourth season of the Duffer brothers' monster sci-fi extravaganza, is – as you might expect – at number one, with 781.04M hours viewed in 17 days. It is now Netflix's most-watched English-language TV series on Netflix all-time list, which measures viewership during a season's first 28 days on the platform.
The previous holder of the crown was the second season of Bridgerton, which scored 656 million hours in a similar period, while the first season of the regency drama racked up 625 million. The only thing standing in the show's way of taking the top spot for any show is Squid Game, which scored 1.65 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days. Even on Stranger Things' current trajectory, it is unlikely to top that.
The success of the show's fourth run has also propelled Stranger Things' back catalog up the charts, too, with the show's second season in second place on Netflix's weekly Top 10, it's debut season in third and its third season in fourth spot. Then, and only then, comes Peaky Blinders' latest installment.
These figures are insane
They certainly are and, in many cases, Peaky Blinders' haul of 45.7 million viewing hours would have seen it place in second spot, or even first in quieter weeks.
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Likewise, Netflix's new documentary series, Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, came in at Number Six, but still managed over 31 million viewing hours, while new teen vampire drama First Kill is down at Number Seven with over 30 million viewing hours in its own right.
Executives at Netflix must be wishing every week could be like this, but they will also be delighted at the prospect of more Stranger Things, with the arrival of the final two episodes in the show's fourth season on July 1. If things continue like this, the Duffer brothers' creation will be able to have the whole top five to itself.
Tom Goodwyn was formerly TechRadar's Senior Entertainment Editor. He's now a freelancer writing about TV shows, documentaries and movies across streaming services, theaters and beyond. Based in East London, he loves nothing more than spending all day in a movie theater, well, he did before he had two small children…
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