Netflix members were glued to their screens over the weekend, watching the first half of Stranger Things’ fourth season. Viewers surpassed the previous record for most hours spent watching a series on its opening weekend, which was previously held by Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton.
From Friday to Sunday, Stranger Things racked up 286.79 million hours of screen time around the world. Season two of Bridgerton, according to the streaming giant, performed nearly 50 percent better than the previous record holder. Fans of Bridgerton turned in for the first weekend of season two in March, accumulating over 193 million hours of viewing. Bridgerton would be watched for an additional 463.26 million hours at the conclusion of its first month, setting a new record for the English series.
Stranger Things’ fourth season premiere weekend success is owed in part to the show’s engrossing story-telling. Even celebrities have expressed their opinions on the season’s turmoil. For example, FINNEAS, an Academy Award, Grammy, and Golden Globe winner who is also the brotherly producer of Billie Eilish, a music industry star, tweeted his support for the show, “New season of stranger things.”
In addition, Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill” has had a rebirth in popularity in the previous week after being used in the new season of Netflix’s sci-fi series. Since being included, the song has been played so much by Stranger Things’ younger audience that it has reached No. 1 on Apple’s iTunes and is the second most listened to song on Spotify’s US chart.
The fourth season’s debut also pushed prior seasons into the top ten most-watched programs. Stranger Things seasons one, two, three, and four took four of the top five slots, with The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 1 in second place with 64.82 million streams, still a huge 221.97 million hours behind the top-rated series.
Stranger Things premiered this weekend. Not only does it beat Bridgerton season two’s opening weekend record for most viewers, but it also puts it on track to break the period drama’s all-time record for most English-language viewers. Fans of the science-fiction drama will have to wait until July to see the second half of the series, which will consist of two episodes totaling nearly four hours. It may be difficult, though, to top the most-watched Netflix series in any language, which Squid Game now holds with 1.65 billion views in its first month.