“Squid Game” became the first program in more than 10 months to surpass the 3-billion-minute mark in weekly viewership on the five streaming services for which Nielsen discloses figures, according to data released Thursday.
Viewers spent 3.26 billion minutes watching the nine-episode South Korean survival drama the week of Sept. 27-Oct. 3 — 41.4% more than the 1.91 billion minutes watched the previous week, its first full week of release on Netflix.
“Squid Game’s” viewership was the most for a streaming program since the week of Nov. 16-22, when viewers spent 3.358 billion minutes watching 40 episodes of the Netflix series about the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II, “The Crown.”
This is the second consecutive week “Squid Game” has been the week’s most-streamed program.
There were three programs in the latest top 10 not in the previous week’s.
The Netflix limited series “Maid” was third with 850 million minutes watched of its 10 episodes in its first three days of release. The first full week the new season of “The Great British Baking Show” was available on Netflix put it in the top 10 for the first time since the week of Nov. 16-22, 2020, placing seventh with 534 million minutes watched of its 67 episodes.
The crime thriller film “The Guilty” tied for ninth with 469 million minutes watched the first three days it was available on Netflix.
Dropping out of the top 10 were the Emmy-winning Apple TV+ soccer comedy “Ted Lasso”; the Netflix social media competition “The Circle”; and the long-running ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” which streams on Netflix.
“Ted Lasso” was eighth the previous week with 509 million minutes watched of its 20 episodes, “Grey’s Anatomy” ninth with 462 million minutes watched of its 376 episodes and “The Circle” 10th with 436 million minutes watched of its 36 episodes.
All the programs in the top 10 stream on Netflix. Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+ and Hulu programming.
The top 10 consisted of four original streaming series, two programs that originally aired on U.S. broadcast networks, “CoComelon,” the 12-episode 3D animated series of videos of traditional nursery rhymes and original children’s songs which originated on YouTube, “Lucifer,” whose first 47 episodes aired on Fox and final 46 streamed on Netflix, “The Great British Baking Show,” which originates on Great Britain’s Channel 4, and one movie.
The top 10 programs were “Squid Game”; “Midnight Mass”; “Maid”; “CoComelon”; “NCIS”; “Lucifer”; “The Great British Baking Show,” “Criminal Minds”; `Sex Education”; and “The Guilty.”
The figures reflect only television-set-related viewing, including such television-connected devices as Roku and Apple TV. Mobile-only viewing is not included in Nielsen’s streaming measurement systems.