The premiere of the Netflix original series Ginny & Georgia captured 953 million minutes of U.S. viewing in its first four days on platform, making it the most watched show in the U.S. major SVOD biz for the week of Feb. 22-28, according to Nielsen.
The 10-episode mother-daughter coming-of-age drama has appeared in Netflix’s “Top 10 in the U.S.” rankings since its Feb. 24 release. It spent 27 straight days at the No. 1 spot.
Netflix, as usual, dominated a ranker that favors the platform with the most subscribers. The off network run of NBC’s Good Girls on Netflix placed No. 2 with 898 million minutes of U.S. viewing, followed by Netflix original movie I Care a Lot (807 minion minutes).
Nielsen ranks movies and shows on the four biggest U.S. SVOD services, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Disney Plus. Each week, it publishes four ranking charts based on minutes-viewed performance a month prior, including a master ranking of the top shows, as well as rankers for original series, aquired series and movies.
Ranking in sixth place overall—and No. 2 on Nielsen’s weekly chart that just measures original shows—was Disney Plus’ WandaVision. For the week of Feb. 22 the eighth installments of the nine-part miniseries garnered 732 million views per minute—up 12 million viewing minutes week over week. The Marvel series initially cracked Nielsen’s original series rankings when it debuted on Jan. 15 and tallied just 434 million minutes of U.S. streaming. With viewership steadily increasing week to week, the Disney Plus series’ finale, which aired on March 5, could finally put WandaVision in the No. 1 spot on the Nielsen originals chart.
Netflix’s Firefly Lane and Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel took the Nos. 4 and 6 spots on the orinals list, respectively, for the fourth full week in February. While Firefly Lane’s 10 episodes captured 383 million viewing minutes, The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel’s four episodes garnered 281 million U.S. viewing minutes.
For the fifth consecutive week, Netflix’s The Great British Baking Show made its presence known on in the originals rankings. Season 11 of the reality competition series premiered on Netflix back in Sept. 25, and apparently, American audiences are still in the mood to watch British citizens bake. The Great British Baking Show’s 65 posted episodes drew 231 million minutes of viewing. (Seasons 1 and 2 of the show are not available on Netflix.)
The series has consistently appeared in Nielsen’s SVOD rankings since the research company began publishing them last fall. The show, known as the The Great British Bake Off in England, has been popular with British audiences since debuting in 2010. The first episode of season 11, which aired on England’s Channel 3 on Sept. 22, three days before airing on Netflix, garnered close to 11 million British viewers.
On the acquired SVOD ranking chart, Good Girls reruns took the No. 1 spot for the second straight week. The NBC hit crime comedy’s 34 episodes captured 898 Million viewing minutes for the week.
Meanwhile, Netflix streaming of the CBS procedural Criminal Minds continues to compel viewers. The 12 seasons and 307 episodes of Criminal Minds available on Netflix garnered 800 million minutes of viewing, putting it in the No. 2 spot on the acquired series ranking chart, just ahead of Grey’s Anatomy. All 16 seasons of that ABC drama are available to Netflix viewers. The series’ 366 episodes tallied 767 million U.S. viewing minutes during the week of Feb. 22.
Netflix’s I Care A Lot, focused on a malevolent elder care giver, debuted on Feb. 19 and took the top spot on the movies chart for the second straight week, garnering 807 million viewing minutes.
Disney Plus films took up the most chart space: Moana, Frozen, Frozen II, Flora and Ulysses, and Avengers: Endgame each took in over one million U.S. viewing minutes.
But perhaps the most impressive inclusion to Nielsen’s movie ranker was Hulu’s Nomadland and United States Vs. Billie Holliday. This is the second week Nomadland, which debuted on the streaming service on Feb. 19, made the list with 97 million viewing minutes. United States Vs. Billie Holliday, which premiered on Hulu Feb. 26, took in 124 million viewing minutes. These performances were remarkable for two reasons. For one, only two days of the film’s viewership was accounted for. Secondly, Hulu has 39 million subscribers vs. Netflix’s 73 million.
