59.6 million views, a Netflix record

Season 5 of ‘Stranger Things’ had a record-breaking debut on Netflix.

In its first five days of streaming, the season was viewed 59.6 million times. That’s the best premiere week viewership an English-language Netflix series has ever achieved, and the third-best overall, behind seasons 2 and 3 of the Korean sci-fi series “Squid Game.”

This also marks a huge increase over the already significant viewership of ‘Stranger Things’ season 4. In 2022, the series opened with 287 million hours watched — at the time, Netflix ranked viewership by stream time rather than views — which translates to approximately 22 million views. Therefore, the debut of Season 5 represents an increase of approximately 171%, although it should be noted that Season 5 had five days to generate views, while Season 4’s numbers were counted over three days.

Despite just premiering, this is already the second viewership record of Season 5. Last week, as anticipation built around the new release, all four previous seasons of “Stranger Things” made the Netflix Top 10 – the first time a series had four different seasons on the chart.

More to come…