Netflix reports that it hit its highest Christmas Day viewership of all time this year, with the second volume of “Stranger Things” Season 5 making a major contribution to that achievement.
While an exact viewership total for Dec. 25 was not provided — and while that total would also include Netflix’s two NFL games and other holiday viewing — the three new “Stranger Things” episodes did help Season 5 to a total of 34.5 million views during the week of Dec. 22-28. That’s the season’s second-best weekly total after its debut with 59.6 million views in November, which was Netflix’s best-ever opening week for an English-language title.
It should be noted that Netflix does not separate viewership of each volume when it reports the Top 10; while the 59.6 million-hour debut after Thanksgiving represented the total number of viewing hours divided by the runtime of the first four episodes, this week’s 34.5 million views were calculated based on all seven available episodes. Therefore, it isn’t possible to know whether Volume 1 or Volume 2 had a bigger debut.
There is still one episode left of “Stranger Things” Season 5. In a surprising move from Netflix, the series finale will debut in movie theaters on New Year’s Eve with a concurrent release on the streamer.
It can be expected that “Stranger Things” Season 5 will soon join Netflix’s list of its most popular English-language TV titles of all time given the new entry’s strong performance thus far. The season isn’t yet eligible for that list given the upcoming finale, but the Dec. 31 release will then begin the 91-day clock through which it will be able to accrue viewership that counts towards the chart.
More to come…