Netflix’s second-season premiere of Bridgerton was watched for a total of more than 2.5 billion minutes in its debut week, Nielsen reported Thursday, doubling up all others in the streaming world for the week of March 21-27.
Season 2 of the Shondaland-produced Regency-era drama series, which premiered March 25, has already become the most-watched debut in Netflix’s history, with the streamer saying it was watched for a record 627.11 million hours in its first 28 days, surpassing Season 1 which had 625.49 million hours during the same span.
Nielsen said today that 76% of Bridgerton viewers in its first week were female.
Nielsen’s streaming numbers measure minutes viewed only via a TV screen, meaning mobile is not counted. It tracks Disney+, Hulu, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix and reports its numbers with a lag in agreement with the streamers.
Other notables in the overall top 10 SVOD rankings for the most recent week available include a distant No. 2 finish for the Netflix movie The Adam Project (1.19B minutes viewed), which finished second last week to Disney+’s animated film Turning Red, which moved to fourth place this week. In third was Netflix’s competition series Is It Cake? (1.185 billion), which jumped 148% from its opening weekend.
Overall in March, Nielsen said audiences spent nearly 30% of their total time watching streaming content, the largest share of overall TV usage ever.
Here are the Top 10 SVOD titles for the week of March 21-27 across film, TV and acquired titles. All are from Netflix unless noted.
Rank, Title (type), Episodes, Minutes (in millions)
1. Bridgerton (TV), 16 episodes, 2,547 billion minutes viewed
2. The Adam Project (film), 1 episode, 1.19 billion
3. Is It Cake? (TV), 8 episodes, 1.185 billion
*4. Turning Red (film), 1 episode, 977 million minutes
5. The Last Kingdom (TV), 46 episodes, 976 million
6. NCIS (TV), 355 episodes, 752 million
*7. Encanto (film), 1 episode, 719 million
8. CoComelon (TV), 15 episodes, 645 million
9. Criminal Minds (TV), 321, 635 million
10. Inventing Anna (TV), 9 episodes, 558 million
*from Disney+