Netflix saw favorable performance across Nielsen’s latest streaming rankings with its drama series “Virgin River” taking the number one spot in both original and overall content – amassing 2.4 billion minutes streamed across 42 episodes.
Nielsen’s ratings, for the week of July 25, saw “Stranger Things” take second place in the originals category with 1.84 billion minutes viewed for all 34 episodes.
The fourth season of “Stranger Things,” which wrapped up on July 1, saw 1.15 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days. The only other Netflix series to cross the billion-hour viewing mark was “Squid Game” at 1.65 billion hours streamed.
Nielsen’s original series category only had two non-Netflix entries in the top 10. Amazon Prime Video’s “The Terminal List” ranked sixth with 427 million minutes viewed in an eight-episode run. While Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” trailed at the number 10 spot with 391 million minutes streamed across 16 episodes.
Within the movie rankings, Netflix’s action spy thriller “The Gray Man” snagged the top spot with 1.37 billion minutes viewed. The movie, released July 22, secured first place on the streamer’s English-language films list in its opening weekend.
Disney+’s “Encanto” was the top performing movie not from Netflix, sitting at fifth place with 240 million minutes viewed.
As for Nielsen’s acquired streaming category, Netflix content claimed most of the top 10. The family oriented “Cocomelon” series came in first with 696 million minutes streamed, while the long-running medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” was the runner-up with 656 million minutes viewed.
HBO Max had two showings on the acquired series list. The sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” saw 392 million minutes viewed at fifth place. “Game of Thrones” came in seventh place with 368 million minutes streamed across its 73 episodes.
The “Game of Thrones” series is still on the media’s radar as its prequel, “House of the Dragon,” just released on Sunday. According to Warner Bros. Discovery, weekly viewer engagement for “Game of Thrones” was up for seven weeks leading up to the prequel debut.
“House of the Dragon” drew nearly 10 million U.S. viewers on its opening night – the largest premiere audience for any HBO original series to-date, WBD noted.