After its premiere on Netflix last week, the second season of Stranger Things attracted a significant amount of viewers.
According to Nielsen data released on Thursday, Season 2 had an audience of 15.8 million viewers, 11 million viewers in adults 18-49, in Episode 1 within three days of its release (Oct. 27-29). Each episode of the second season pulled more than 4 million viewers, 3 million of them in the adult demographic. Nielsen’s results also showed that 361,000 people watched every episode of Season 2, all nine episodes, within 24 hours of its launch.
These ratings come after Nielsen announced that they would release more and more viewership of TV shows from Netflix. However, Netflix has not denied or confirmed these new numbers. Variety reported that Netflix would not be participating in Nielsen’s new effort when Nielsen first made the announcement.
Netflix explained, “The data that Nielsen is reporting is not accurate, not even close, and does not reflect the viewing of these shows on Netflix.,” according to Variety.
Nevertheless, the numbers presented from Nielsen are calculated with the same approach of measuring Live +3 ratings for broadcast television.
Brian Fuhrer, Senior VP product leadership at Nielsen, told The Hollywood Reporter, “You can put these Netflix and broadcast numbers right next to one another and understand the relationship.”
The full viewership tally of every episode within the three-day window is listed below.
“Chapter One” averaged 15.8 million viewers; 11 million adults 18-49
‘Chapter Two” averaged 13.7 million viewers; 9.6 million adults 18-49
“Chapter Three” averaged 11.6 million viewers; 8.1 million adults 18-49
“Chapter Four” averaged 9.3 million viewers; 6.6 million adults 18-49
“Chapter Five” averaged 8 million viewers; 5.6 million adults 18-49
“Chapter Six” averaged 6.4 million viewers; 4.5 million adults 18-49
“Chapter Seven” averaged 5.3 million viewers; 3.7 million adults 18-49
“Chapter Eight” averaged 4.9 million viewers; 3.4 million adults 18-49
“Chapter Nine” averaged 4.6 million viewers; 3.2 million adults 18-49
Based on these numbers, Stranger Things appears to be in a class with television’s highest-rated shows.
