‘Stranger Things 4’ Fails to Break ‘Squid Game’ Record as Most Popular Netflix TV Season Ever

Selome Hailu

Now that 28 days have passed since the premiere of “Stranger Things” Season 4 Volume 2, it’s official: the season did not break the record of “Squid Game” to become Netflix’s most popular season of television ever.

The streamer calculates this statistic based on hours viewed during a title’s first 28 days of availability. In the case of the segmented release of “Stranger Things” Season 4, Volume 1’s viewership in the 28 days after its debut was combined with Volume 2’s viewership viewership after 28 days — meaning that viewership of Volume 1 during Volume 2’s eligible window did not contribute towards the final count. (Volume 1 consists of seven episodes that debuted on May 27, while Volume 2 consists of two episodes that debuted on July 1.)

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Ultimately, “Stranger Things” Season 4 ended its run with 1.4 billion hours viewed, compared to “Squid Game’s” 1.7 billion. Important to note is the running time of both seasons: “Squid Game” is approximately 8 hours long in total, while “Stranger Things” Season 4 is approximately 13 hours long, but the 5-hour advantage of the Duffer brothers’ sci-fi hit was still not enough to match Hwang Dong-hyuk’s South Korean drama.

With 57.7 million hours watched, “Stranger Things” Season 4 took second place on the Netflix Top 10 during the July 25-31 viewing window, beat for the second week in a row by “Virgin River” Season 4, which was watched for 87.9 million hours in its first full week of availability. This was also the first week since the debut of “Stranger Things” Season 4 Volume 1 that didn’t include all previous seasons of the show on the Top 10: In eighth place was Season 3 with 21.4 million hours, and in 10th place was Season 2 with 20.2 million hours, but Season 1 did not make the cut.

In third place after four days of availability was “Keep Breathing,” which stars Melissa Barrera as Liv, a New York lawyer who is the lone survivor after her private plane crashes in the remote Canadian frontier, leaving her to battle both an unforgiving wilderness and past personal demons to stay alive. The limited series, which premiered on July 28, was watched for 48.1 million hours. Limited series “The Most Hated Man on the Internet” also made debuted in the Top 10 this week, coming in sixth place with 24.7 million hours watched after five days of availability. The documentary project tells the story of mother’s mission against Hunter Moore, the self-styled ‘King of Revenge Porn’, after nude photos of her daughter are posted online.

“Resident Evil” remains in the Top 10 this week, ranking at No. 5 with 27.5 million hours watched. Manifest” also continues to chart after a recent resurgence, with Season 1 taking the No. 4 position (39.8 million) and Season 2 taking the No. 7 position (24.2 million). Season 3 made its re-entry this week at No. 9 with 20.6 million hours.

See Netflix’s Top 10 lists for the week of July 25-31 below, beginning with English-language series and followed by non-English-language TV shows, English-language movies and then non-English-language movies.

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VIP+ Data: ‘Stranger Things’ vs. ‘Squid Game’: Tracking the Champ

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