“Squid Game” was the most-watched program for the fourth consecutive week among the five streaming services for which Nielsen releases figures, despite a 25.4% drop in viewership, according to figures released Wednesday.
Viewers spent 2.254 billion minutes watching the nine-episode South Korean Netflix survival drama the week of Oct. 11-17, after spending 3.021 billion minutes watching the previous week, when it became the third program to surpass the 3-billion-minute mark in weekly viewership for back-to-back weeks.
The only other programs to top the 3-billion-minute mark in back-to- back weeks were “Ozark,” which topped the figure for three consecutive weeks in March and April 2020, and “Tiger King” for back-to-back weeks in March and April 2020.
Nielsen has been measuring streaming viewership since 2017.
The Oct. 15 release of its 10-episode third season made the psychological thriller “You” among four programs in the latest top 10 not in the previous week’s, with viewers spending 1.938 billion minutes watching its 30 episodes, second for the week.
The first seven days of Netflix’s release of the 11th and final season of “Shameless” made the Showtime comedy-drama fourth for the week, with viewers spending 964 million minutes watching its 134 episodes.
The first full week the 22-episode eighth season of “The Blacklist” was available on Netflix and made the NBC crime thriller sixth for the week with 656 million minutes watched of its 169 episodes.
The release of a new episode returned “The Great British Baking Show” to the top 10 after a one-week absence, with viewers spending 519 million minutes watching its 69 episodes, ninth for the week.
Dropping out of the top 10 were teen comedy-drama “On My Block” and the supernatural horror miniseries “Midnight Mass,” which both stream on Netflix; the Marvel film “Black Widow,” which streams on Disney+; and the Emmy-winning Apple TV+ soccer comedy “Ted Lasso.”
The Netflix limited series “Maid” was the week’s other program to top the 1-billion-minutes mark, with viewers watching 1.474 billion minutes of its 10 episodes, third for the week. “Maid” has topped 1 billion minutes in both of its two full weeks of release.
All of the top 10 programs stream on Netflix. Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+ and Hulu programming.
The top 10 consisted of five programs that originally aired on U.S. broadcast or cable networks; two original streaming series; “You,” whose first 10 episodes aired on Lifetime and next 20 streamed on Netflix; “CoComelon,” the 12-episode 3D animated series of videos of traditional nursery rhymes and original children’s songs that originated on YouTube; and “The Great British Baking Show,” which originates on Great Britain’s Channel 4.
The top 10 programs were “Squid Game”; “You”; “Maid”; “Shameless”; “CoComelon”; “The Blacklist”; “Seinfeld”; “NCIS”; “The Great British Baking Show”; and “Criminal Minds.”
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.
