With the final two episodes of Stranger Things Season 4 dropping on Netflix Friday, the show's most recent campaign drew more than 301 million viewing hours on the platform last week.
Netflix benchmarks the all-time audience greatness of its shows based on individual seasons and how they perform based on hours viewed in the first 28 days after their release.
Stranger Things' fourth season has now surpassed 1.15 billion viewing hours, with Netflix resetting its 28-day "shot clock" to account for those final two installments. Stranger Things "Season 4, Volume 1" had gathered 930 million viewing hours through the first 28 days after the release of seven episodes on May 27. With the release of the season's two "Volume 2" episodes, Netflix is giving the show another 28-day clock through July 29.
Initially last month, when Netflix revealed this tweak in its accounting methodology, it appeared that Stranger Things Season 4 might overtake the platform's all-time ratings champ, the Korean-language sensation Squid Game, which garnered a global audience of over 1.8 billion streaming hours in its first four weeks, but that calculus now appears unlikely.
For the week of June 27 - July 3, Stranger Things overshadowed another strong performance by Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy, which drew nearly 88 million hours of streaming in its second week on the platform.
Also strong was hitman-themed buddy comedy The Man From Toronto starring Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson, which led Netflix's movie charts with more than 62.6 million viewing hours in its second week on Netflix.
