After four weeks of being No.1 on Nielsen's weekly top 10 ranking of the most watched shows in U.S. subscription streaming, Netflix's Korean-language series Squid Game dropped to the No. 2 spot for the week of Oct. 18-24.
Exactly one month after Squid Game’s Sept. 17 premiere, the dystopian-themed show garnered 1.938 billion viewing minutes across nine episodes. That opened the door for a solid Season 3 debut for Netflix psychological thriller You, which attracted 2.254 billion viewing minutes for the week ending Oct. 24.
Starring Penn Badgley as a charming but intense and obsessive young man, You premiered its third campaign on Oct. 15 and finished second to Squid Game with 1.938 billion viewing minutes for the week ending Oct. 17.
On Wednesday, Netflix announced final first-28-day global performance metrics for Squid Game, using a new “hours-viewed” metric, similar to Nielsen’s “minutes-viewed” format. The series attracted 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first four weeks of release in 90 countries. The previous record holder was the first season of Shonda Rhimes period drama Bridgerton, which commanded 625 million viewing hours on Netflix in its first four weeks.
Meanwhile, another Netflix original, Maid, finished third and in the top 10 for the fourth straight week, with the domestic-servant-themed freshman series garnering 865 million viewing minutes across 10 installments.
And speaking of still more Netflix originals, the second season debut of Locke and Key on Oct. 22 helped the supernatural horror show capture 637 million viewing minutes, putting it in the No. 6 spot among all shows for the week ending Oct. 24. Locke and Key was renewed for a third season in Dec. 2020.
There were no non-Netflix shows in the top 10, original or otherwise. But on Nielsen's sub-ranking of original SVOD productions, the season finale of Hulu's Only Murders in the Building saw its week-over-week viewership perk up nearly 22% to 386 million minutes.
And Apple TV Plus' Ted Lasso, which ended its second season on Oct. 8, still had enough juice for the week of Oct. 18-24 to finish ninth among all originals with 291 million viewing minutes.
Six acquired Netflix series—Shameless, Cocomelon, The Blacklist, Seinfeld, NCIS and In the Dark took the remaining spots on Nielsen's weekly top 10 SVOD chart.
Shameless, starring William H. Macy as alcoholic patriarch Frank Gallagher, captured 851 million viewing minutes across all 134 series episodes available on Netflix. The show, like the week prior, took the No. 4 spot.
The gift that keeps on giving, MoonBug Entertainment’s animated kids series Cocomelon, snagged the fifth spot on Nielsen’s SVOD top 10 chart with 748 million streaming minutes
In the Dark, a CW show about a blind woman seeking justice, finished in seventh place. The third season of the drama premiered on Netflix on Oct. 14. The series has been streaming on the streaming service since July 2019.
Seinfeld, a former Hulu on-demand selection took in 595 million viewing minutes across 166 episodes to finish eighth.
The Blacklist, licensed from producer Universal Television and starring James Spader, garnered 586 million viewing minutes putting the show that consists of 169 episodes in the No. 9 spot. The eighth season of The Blacklist debuted on Netflix on Oct. 6.
Coming in at No. 10 was CBS procedural NCIS with 540 million minutes.
No movies made the main top 10 ranking this week, but Disney Plus continued to dominate the sub-ranking of SVOD films, with Marvel title Black Widow finishing first with 269 million viewing minutes.
Previous Weekly Rankings:
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
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
