Netflix has declared the Shonda Rhimes-produced, Regency period-set romantic drama Bridgerton as its most watched original series of all time.
According to the streaming service, in 28 days since the show’s eight first-season episodes all posted on Dec. 25, 82 million households worldwide have streamed at least two minutes of one episode of the series.
That usurps the previous No. 1 Netflix series, The Witcher, which captured 76 million views in its first four weeks on the platform in December 2019.
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Worth noting: The Witcher debuted on the platform at a time when Netflix had around 167 million subscribers globally, while Bridgerton played to an audience of around 195 million.
Nielsen ranked Bridgerton third based on overall minutes streamed for the week of Dec. 21-27, with the show garnering just over 1.2 billion minutes of viewing. Disney’s Soul (1.67 billion minutes) and repeats of The Office on Netflix (1.43 billion) were the only shows to rank higher that week. (Nielsen’s chart doesn’t account for HBO Max, which debuted Wonder Woman on Christmas Day.)
Also notable: Netflix's Chris Hemsworth-led action movie Extraction is still its most successful original (non-series) show of all time, counting 99 million views in its first 28 days.
No matter how the lentil is split, all of it seems to render that $100 million overall deal Netflix gave Rhimes back in 2017 as looking better and better.
“The show has made the top 10 in every country except Japan—hitting No. 1 in 83 countries including the U.S., UK, Brazil, France, India and South Africa. Indeed, the success of Bridgerton propelled the books into The New York Times best seller lists for the first time, and 18 years after they were first published,” blogged Netflix VP of originals, Jinny Howe.
Netflix has already signed on for a second season of Bridgerton, which is show-run by Chris Van Dusen, an underling for Rhimes dating back to Grey’s Anatomy. Betsy Beers, another Grey’s disciple, exec produces alongside Rhimes and Van Dusen.
Notably, repeats of Grey's Anatomy consistently rank as among the most viewed shows on Nielsen's weekly ranker.
