The third season of Netflix original series You generated over 1.5 billion minutes of viewing in the U.S. from Oct. 25-31, making it subscription streaming's most watched show in the U.S. that week, according to Nielsen figures.
Starring Penn Badgley as an obsessively intense but charming young fellow, You's third season premiered Oct. 15, and the A+E Studios-produced stalker-themed drama captured nearly 1.94 billion minutes of U.S. viewing to also finish No. 1 on Nielsen's weekly chart for the week of Oct. 17-24.
Next TV has closely tracked Nielsen's weekly SVOD ratings since the research company debuted them last year, and they remain one of the few independent sources of audience performance data for subscription streaming. But Netflix's addition of its own weekly ratings data--based on hours viewed, not minutes--adds to both the complexity and the clarity of the global audience performance picture.
Netflix's own snapshot of English-language series for the week of Oct. 25-31 paints a far broader picture of You's global hit status, with just the 10 third-season episodes capturing nearly 82.8 billion hours of viewing globally. From Europe to Latin America to Asia, You ranked in the top 10 for the week in 91 countries, according to Netflix, with Seasons 1 and 2 each capturing more than 28 billion hours of viewing globally. (Unlike Nielsen, Netflix can bisect ratings performance for shows into individual seasons.)
Also unlike Nielsen, which only measures shows on the top SVOD services as they performed four weeks prior, Netflix's rankings only trail real time by a week. Thus, we can see that You Season 3 also led the platform for the week of Nov. 1-6, despite losing about 36% of its viewing hours.
Indeed, with Netflix -- at 74 million users -- holding a far larger pool of U.S. viewers than any other domestic SVOD service, Nielsen's weekly rankings are mostly filled up with Netflix shows and movies, anyway.
With Netflix's new top 10 site including so much more data, chopped into many more and much finer indices, it's easy to wonder why we'd still concern ourselves with Nielsen data in the first place.
Again, the answer is that there just aren't that many third-party sources for this information.
It's notable that Netflix, with Canadian-produced fantasy drama Locke & Key and the enduring Korean-language mega-hit Squid Game, had three shows capture more than 1 billion minutes of U.S. viewing for the week of Oct. 25-31.
Outside of Nielsen's sub-ranking of SVOD movies, the only non-Netflix show to rank on a Nielsen list for Oct. 25-31 was Apple TV Plus' Ted Lasso, which had 275 million U.S. viewing minutes.
All 10 shows on Nielsen's acquired series sub-ranker were also licensed by Netflix, including Moonbug Entertainment-produced kiddie sensation Cocomelon.
Since Disney Plus (population: over 40 million U.S. subscribers) is a powerful draw for movies, SVOD films remain a key differentiator for Nielsen vs. Netflix's new ratings tracker. For the week of Oct. 25-31, six of the top 10 films belonged to Disney Plus, including the No. 1 title, 1993's Hocus Pocus starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Bette Midler.
Previous Weekly Rankings:
Oct. 18-24: Netflix’s Season 3 Debut of ‘You' Finally Dethrones ‘Squid Game’
Oct. 4-10: Not for Nothin', But a Show That Left Broadcast TV 23 Years Ago Just Cracked the Top 10
Sept. 27 - Oct. 3: Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Is the First Show to Garner 3 Billion or More Viewing Minutes in the Post-Pandemic Era
Sept. 12-19: Netflix Phenom ‘Squid Game’ Got Off to a Surprisingly Slow Start
Sept. 6-11: Netflix’s ‘Clickbait’ Holds Off Surging ‘Lucifer’
August 30 - Sept. 5: Netflix’s 'Clickbait' Steals Audience Traffic From 'Manifest'
August 23-29: Netflix’s 'Manifest' Soars Back to No. 1 with the Debut of Season 3
August 16-22: Netflix’s ’Outer Banks’ Loses 37% of Its Audience, Still Finishes No. 1
August 9-15: Netflix’s Scrappy ‘Outer Banks’ Maintains the No. 1 Spot
August 2-8: Netflix's ‘Outer Banks’ Surpasses 2.1 Billion Viewing Minutes
July 26 - August 1: Netflix's 'All American' Edges 'Outer Banks' for No. 1
July 19-25: Netflix’s ‘Virgin River’ Maintains the No. 1 Spot
July 12-18: Netflix’s ‘Virgin River’ Ends Five-Week ‘Manifest’ Winning Streak
June 28-July 4: Amazon’s $200 Million Bet on Paramount’s ‘The Tomorrow War’ Pays Off
June 21-27: ‘Manifest’ Continues Series Saving Flight Plan on Netflix
June 14-20: Netflix’s ‘Manifest’ Scores the Year’s Biggest SVOD Audience So Far
June 7-13: Netflix’s ‘Sweet Tooth’ Shows Bite for the Week of June 7-13
May 31-June 6: Netflix’s ‘Lucifer’ Bedevils SVOD’s Biggest Audience Since Season 3 of 'Cobra Kai’ Debuted in January
May 24-30: Netflix’s ‘Lucifer’ Has SVOD’s Biggest Week* Since ‘Coming 2 America’ Debuted in Early-March
May 17-23: Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead’ on Netflix Leads a Rather Lifeless Week for the U.S. Streaming Biz
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May 3-9: Netflix’s $100 Million Bet on Sony’s ‘The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ Pays Off
April 26 - May 2: Netflix’s ‘Shadow and Bone’ Edges Hulu’s ‘Handmade’s Tale' in Rebound Week for the Streaming Biz
April 19-25: Netflix’s ‘NCIS’ Off-net Run Wins Another ‘Easttown and Down' Week for the U.S. SVOD Biz
April 12-18: Disney Plus’ ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ Builds to 855 Million Streaming Minutes and a No. 1 Finish
April 5-11: Give Netflix's 'Thunder Force' Five for Winning the Week of April 5-11
March 29 - April 4: Netflix’s ‘The Irregulars’ Tops the Easter Week Charts
March 22-28: - 'Falcon and Winter Soldier' Tops SVOD Originals
March 15-21: - 'Grey's Anatomy' Re-Runs Top SVOD Ranker
March 8-14: - ‘The Crown’ Got Royal Gains from Meghan’s Big Oprah Interview
March 1-7: - Amazon Tops the Charts for the First Time with ‘Coming 2 America’
Feb 22-28: - Netflix’s 'Ginny & Georgia' Leads the SVOD Biz
