Netflix feels like it breaks its own records with every new release, whether it’s a movie or a TV show, but the Nielsen Report for the week of the debut of Stranger Things Season 5 confirms the sci-fi series may have set a new standard that even it might not be able to break. The latest report calculating numbers for the week of November 24th, when Season 5 returned, revealed that Stranger Things tallied 8.46 billion viewing minutes, which converts to roughly 140 million hours globally.
As noted by What’s on Netflix, with Season 5 debuting on Wednesday of this week, these numbers only tabulated 3.5 days of viewing time for this batch of four episodes. Nielsen notes that Season 5 accounts for roughly 57% of the hours watched, which means audiences were revisiting Seasons 1-4 to account for the other 43%. This new total viewed record is more than one billion minutes more than the previous record, and, understandably, the record was previously held by Stranger Things, with that record being set the week that Season 4 premiered on Netflix.
With the next batch of episodes debuting on Netflix on December 25 and the series finale debuting on December 31, we won’t be surprised if the series breaks a few more records in the coming weeks.
‘Stranger Things’ Comes to an End…Kind of
Stranger Things felt like it came out of nowhere when it premiered on Netflix back in 2016, largely because it starred a cast made up of unknown, young actors, and creators Matt and Ross Duffer weren’t household names. Over the years, the series has grown into being one of the most popular TV series of all time, permeating all corners of pop culture.
For the first three seasons, the entire season would premiere on Netflix at once, though Season 4 marked a major change: fans got the first seven episodes in May 2022, and the final two episodes didn’t debut until July. As the popularity of the series grew, so did the runtimes of each episode, with the next batch of episodes all being longer than an hour and the series finale running two hours and eight minutes. What might impact the viewership numbers, though, is that the series finale will be screening in select theaters, taking minutes away from streaming totals.
Even though this core narrative is seemingly coming to an end, Stranger Things won’t officially be ending anytime soon. The mythology of this world already expanded into a live theatrical production, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, while also earning a number of spin-off comic books. The animated spin-off Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 is expected sometime in 2026, and another live-action spin-off is in the works, though official details about that project have been kept under wraps.
