“Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” drew the 10th-highest weekly viewership total since Nielsen began measuring streaming programming in 2020, according to the latest weekly figures released Thursday.
The 10-episode Netflix biographical crime drama was watched for 3.658 billion minutes in its first five days of release to finish first for the week of Sept. 19-25.
“Stranger Things” holds the weekly record with 7.203 billion minutes for its 34 episodes from May 30-June 5, the first full week the first seven episodes of the science fiction horror drama series’ fourth season were available.
“Stranger Things” has made the all-time top 10 list five times and the crime drama “Ozark” and documentary series “Tiger King” twice each.
There were three other programs in the latest weekly top 10 not in the previous week’s.
The Mark Wahlberg-starring film drama “Father Stu” was seventh with 717 million minutes watched in its first full week of release, 175.8% more than the 260 million minutes watched the previous week when it was available for three days.
The thriller film “Lou” was eighth with 681 million minutes watched in its first full week of release. The fantasy drama “Fate: The Winx Saga,” was ninth with 675 million minutes watched of its 13 episodes, including its seven-episode second season which was in its first full week of release.
“El Rey, Vicente Fernandez,” was 10th with 348 million minutes watched of the 36 episodes of the Spanish-language biographical drama of the late Mexican ranchera and mariachi star.
All three programs stream on Netflix.
Dropping out of the top 10 were the fantasy drama “Game of Thrones,” which streams on HBO Max; three-part documentary series “Sins of Our Mother” and the long-running CBS action drama “NCIS,” which both stream on Netflix; and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film “Thor: Love and Thunder,” which streams on Disney+.
“Cobra Kai” dropped to second with back-to-back first-place finishes with 1.11 billion minutes watched of the 50 episodes of the sequel to the 1984 film “The Karate Kid” on Netflix. Viewership was down 42.1% from the 1.918 billion minutes watched the previous week.
“House of the Dragon” was the other program to be watched for more than 1 billion minutes, with viewers watching the six episodes of the HBO/HBO Max “Game of Thrones” prequel for 1.008 billion minutes, 4.8% more than the previous week when the five episodes available were watched for 960 million minutes, also third for the week.
A new episode of “House of the Dragon” also airs each Sunday on HBO but that viewership is not included in the streaming figure.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was fourth with 977 million minutes watched of the five episodes of the Prime Video series set thousands of years before the events of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” 1.1% less than the previous week when the four episodes available were watched for 988 million minutes, second for the week.
The top 10 consisted of eight programs that stream on Netflix and one each that stream on HBO Max and Disney+.
Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Apple TV+, Disney+ and Hulu programming.
The top 10 consisted of five original streaming series, two movies, one program each that originally aired on The CW and HBO; and “CoComelon,” the 18-episode 3D animated series of videos of traditional nursery rhymes and original children’s songs that originated on YouTube.
Nielsen considers “House of the Dragon” an acquired program because it also airs on HBO.
The top 10 programs were “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”; “Cobra Kai”; “House of the Dragon”; “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”; “In the Dark”; “CoComelon”; “Father Stu”; “Lou”; “Fate: The Winx Saga” and “El Rey, Vicente Fernandez.”
The figures reflect only television-set viewing, including such television-connected devices as Roku and Apple TV. Mobile-only viewing is not included in Nielsen’s streaming measurement systems.
While Nielsen releases weekly prime-time broadcast and cable ratings two days after the end of the week, except for holidays, viewership figures for streaming services are not released until 25 days after the end of the week because it takes more time to completely capture assets to report and aggregate streaming viewing, according to Nielsen
Nielsen has announced it plans to shorten the release window for its streaming programming in the coming months.