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'Stranger Things 4' Fans Binged 286.8 Million Hours in 3 Days, Netflix Says

It's the most viewing of a single TV season within one week since the height of the Squid Game phenomenon.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
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Joan E. Solsman
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Millie Bobby Brown, as Eleven, screams with a contorted face as sparks explode behind her

Stranger Things 4's first seven episodes hit Netflix Friday. 

 Netflix

Stranger Things returned to Netflix after a three year hiatus Friday, with its latest season generating the most viewing for one season in a single week since the heyday of Squid Game's popularity -- and Stranger Things didn't have the full week to rack up hours.

In the week ended Sunday, Netflix customers globally streamed 286.8 million hours of Stranger Things 4. That's the most viewing of a show in a single week since the Squid Game phenomenon reached its peak at 571.8 million hours in one week straddling September and October last year. 

By comparison, Bridgerton's second season, which was released March 25, generated 193 million hours of vieweing in its first three days; it went on to become Netflix's most watched English-language TV show yet. 

Netflix launched a website in mid-November posting weekly charts of its most popular shows and movies, as well as a global ranking of all-time most watched titles. The charts are updated every week and ranked by the total number of hours that subscribers spent watching them. 

The rankings represent an unprecedented trove of data about what's popular on Netflix, detailing the most popular titles in the last week not only globally but also for more than 90 individual countries. It is, by far, the most transparency that Netflix has ever adopted for its viewership. It will also help subscribers like you have a better grip on what's most popular on the world's biggest subscription streaming service. 

For years, Netflix was notoriously tight-lipped about its viewership. Beau Willimon -- creator of House of Cards, which put Netflix's original programming on the map -- once said the company wouldn't even share viewership metrics with him. 

But within the last two years, Netflix has become much more open about the popularity of its shows and movies to help it recruit talent and stoke buzz. First, Netflix added a top-trending ranking to its service, so people can see the most popular titles streaming on Netflix in their country on any given day. Then it also started publicly sharing popularity stats for certain titles, publicizing the number of accounts that watched two minutes of a particular title in its first month of release.

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