Great reviews and even better word-of-mouth have catapulted Netflix’s Stranger Things to the top of Netflix’s most popular TV shows.
Symphony Advanced Media, a modern Nielsen, if you will, has been Netflix’s biggest enemy when it comes to exposing viewership numbers. Netflix has never released any viewership numbers for its Original Series*, leading places like Symphony to try and estimate the totals themselves.
Groups like Symphony do this by creating their own panel (made up of 15,000 people) to gauge how many people are watching what. The panelists install an app on their phone that is always listening to what the person is watching. (It’s a tad creepy, but it helps us get this interesting information!)
In a new report, Symphony’s data reveals that Netflix’s recent Original Series Stranger Things has been a runaway hit (as if you couldn’t tell by all the chatter online).
Here are the most popular TV shows on Netflix in the past year, in their first 35 days, as of August 2016:
- Orange is the New Black
- Fuller House
- Stranger Things (estimated 14.07 million)
- Making a Murderer (13.35 million)
- Daredevil season 2 (13.35 million)
- Jessica Jones (6.26 million)
Being its second-ever Original Series and one that appeals to young adults, it’s no surprise that Orange is the New Black pulled in the highest viewership numbers. And speaking of appealing to young adults — especially those who watched Full House in the ’90s — we’re not surprised to see Fuller House ranks so highly.
We expect Stranger Things will continue to pull in these impressive numbers in the years to come. Like OITNB and Fuller House, the new series appeals to people of all ages.
In fact, we’re sure season 2 — whenever Netflix officially orders it — will be even more popular than season 1 in its first month. We’ll all be curious to learn more about this mysterious organization that has plagued Hawkins.
Related: ‘Stranger Things’: Are Barb and Brenner truly (spoiler)? The creators speak out
*Why does Netflix keep viewership numbers a secret? Ted Sarandos argues that “subscriber growth, not ratings drives our revenue.”