Squid Game took the internet and Netflix itself by storm when it was released. The Korean Netflix series stunned everyone with its massive success. In no time, it became one of the most popular TV shows ever in the history of Netflix. The series claimed the no. 1 on the streamer’s daily Top 10 list in several countries for a number of weeks and still remains as one of the most streamed shows.
However, in the latest news, the show has been overthrown, by another show, as the most popular TV show on Netflix, currently. As per Nielsen, which functions on a slower turnaround as compared to Netflix’s own methodology of calculating top10/viewership/ratings, one of Netflix’s own series, You (Season 3), ended the domination of Squid Game as the top TV show in the United States. Nielsen claims that You has been watched for over 2.6 billion minutes in total, claiming the first spot, while Squid Game ranked second with over 1.6 billion minutes streamed.
It is pertinent to mention that these numbers provided by Nielsen are generally in line with what Netflix has reported on their internal metrics in the past. Netflix recently introduced a new method of rankings regarding how much their movies and TV shows are watched instead of old secretive statistics.
As per the new methodology, Netflix will rank “Top 10” movies and TV Shows based on hours watched from Monday to Sunday of the preceding week. Previously Netflix used to share viewership data by periodically announcing the numbers simply by adding up how many subscribers watched at least two minutes of a particular movie or series. The company, last month, announced in its financial report that it would be bidding farewell to the “two-minute” metric.
Netflix’s new website is solely used to announce the Top-10 shows and minutes watched for each show or movie. It disclosed that in the week of October 18 to 24 (which Nielsen’s collected the numbers for), You ruled Squid Game during that period. However, the South Korean mega-hit has regained the top spot. Putting it into context, You (Season 3) aired on October 15, meaning that the above-mentioned week was when it took the top spot of popularity.
In order to give you a perspective of how widely popular Squid Game has been for Netflix, let’s reveal the statistics of the most recent week that the streamer has revealed on the website for the week of November 8 to November 14; that is for Global viewership instead just the US, unlike Nielsen’s data. In this particular period, You (Season 3) was watched for 33.7 hours. It is worth mentioning that Netflix calculates metrics in hours as compared to Nielsen’s minutes. The data shows that Squid Game jumped back to the top and streamed 42.7 hours, becoming the top non-English TV series on Netflix.
With such staggering numbers, it didn’t come out as a surprise that Netflix immediately started negotiations with the creator of Squid Game for a second season next year. Moreover, they seem to have a feeling that You would be a hit nonetheless. As a result, the streamer announced that you would return with season 4 and will be released on the same day as season 3.
