The fourth season of super-power-themed family drama The Umbrella Academy generated Netflix’s largest audience last week, with 47.5 million viewing hours and 8.4 million views from August 5-11.
Netflix is probably isn't singing in the rain about this performance, considering the 10-episode drop of season 3 two years ago generated nearly 125 million hours of streaming globally in the first week.
Viewers have generally held contempt for the six-episode fourth-season of the show, which stars Elliot Page.
Overall, however, Netflix experienced a 18.4% decrease in viewer engagement compared to a corresponding window from last year.
Netflix’s teen mystery, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, also finished atop the English-language series category, generating 38.9 million viewing hours and 8.4 million views.
Also Read: Top Streamer Hits an All-Time Viewership Low -- Netflix Weekly Rankings for July 29 - August 4
Notably, the two Netflix properties were the only ones to break the 30 million hour viewership milestone — a marginal improvement from last week, when only A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder managed to cross the threshold.
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On the film side, viewership numbers for the new SpongeBob film Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie also saw marginal improvement, ending the week with 19.5 million viewing hours and 13.4 million views.
That means that for two consecutive weeks, the film was Netflix’s only property to generate more than 10 million views.
Since June 2023, when Netflix began publishing a “views” metric, the numbers have only fallen that low two other times.
Jack Reid is a USC Annenberg Journalism major with experience reporting, producing and writing for Annenberg Media. He has also served as a video editor, showrunner and live-anchor during his time in the field.