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Stranger Breakings
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The second volume of season four of Stranger Things released this week and may have temporarily broken Netflix as eager fans tried to stream it.

Of more interest though is the series breaking a Nielsen record of 7.2 billion minutes viewed in a single week (May 30 - June 5).

Only three series had previously exceeded 5 billion minutes: Tiger King (twice), Ozark and Stranger Things.

In the case of Stranger Things that was in the week of May 23-29 with Netflix attributing 75% of viewing to season four.

Three other sci-fi titles join Stranger Things in the top ten streaming original series, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+) with 958 million in third, The Boys (Prime Video) with 919 million in fourth and Night Sky (Prime Video) with 242 million in eighth position.

No sci-fi made the top ten acquired series.

Together to our eye these reflect the boom sci-fi is currently enjoying.

The Numbers

Stranger Things is a great show and inarguably now a major franchise, but with statistics there can be devils in the details.

Netflix's spending on this season of Stranger Things was widely reported and commented on, including by us.

An average thirty million per episode made great press.

But what about episode length?

Season four's nine episodes totalled thirteen hours and according to showrunners is nearly double the length of any previous season.

Episode length is now flexible and that's ok - we think it's working extremely well for The Orville - but makes this budget per episode metric a less meaningful measure.

What about these 7.2 billion minutes viewed for Stranger Things?

Longer episodes obviously add up to more minutes viewed.

Obi-Wan Kenobi episode runtimes are 36-53 minutes and there are also no previous seasons of it being watched and included.

Another ratings monitor Samba TV gave us a more comparable measure - US households watching over the 4-day holiday weekend - 2.9 million for Stranger Things season 4 (only) and 2.14 for Obi-wan Kenobi.

Still a clear win for Stranger Things over Star Wars but by a much smaller margin.

That said, minutes viewed isn't an invalid measure and has the potential to capture and illustrate real viewer behaviour.

For example, all of the above taken into consideration, it looks like Stranger Things might be being rewatched more than other series and that would be noteworthy.

Volume Two

Having split this season into two volumes, we'd predict Stranger Things to be breaking this record again right now, with some viewers rewatching the first volume in preparation for the second.

Some also watching the finale, then watching the entire season again.

We'll keep an eye out for those numbers.

[ Main Image: Stranger Things - Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo & Priah Ferguson. Credit: Netflix via IMDb.com. ]

References

Bentley, Jean (May 21, 2022). ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Is the Most Supersized Ever. Tudum.

Outlaw, Kofi (July 1, 2022). Stranger Things 4 Volume 2 Release Causes Netflix Crash. Comicbook.com.

Porter, Rick (July 1, 2022). ‘Stranger Things 4’ Sets Nielsen Streaming Record. The Hollywood Reporter.

Wikipedia. Obi-Wan Kenobi (TV series). (viewed July 3, 2022)