Season 4 of “Stranger Things” was watched for 188.2 million hours between July 4 and July 10, the first full week of availability for the two episodes that make up Volume 2. This marks a drop in 113 million hours compared to the week of June 27-July 3, when the series was watched for 301.3 million hours — and made Season 4 Netflix’s first English-language title to cross 1 billion hours watched total — even though Volume 2 was only available for the last three days of the window.
The decrease in viewership indicates that the season likely will not beat out South Korean drama “Squid Game” to become Netflix’s most-watched series ever. Netflix calculates that statistic based on hours watched during a title’s first 28 days of availability, and “Squid Game’s” number to beat is 1.65 billion. Only viewership of the four-hour-long Volume 2 of “Stranger Things” Season 4 is still being counted towards the most popular chart, as Volume 1 premiered back on May 27, but the series still technically has through July 28 to continue racking up hours.
Still, “Stranger Things” continues to be the highest-performing series on the platform right now, landing in the No. 1 position on the English-language series chart for the July 4-10 viewing window. As has been the trend for weeks now, all previous seasons made the chart as well, with Season 1 at No. 2 (45.2 million), Season 2 at No. 4 (41.1 million) and Season 3 at No. 5 (36.6 million). Surprisingly, unlike Season 4, Seasons 1-3 increased in viewership compared to the week before.
Additionally, “Stranger Things” saw success this week outside of just viewership — Season 4 earned 13 Emmy nominations.
“The Umbrella Academy” continued as “Stranger Things’” main competitor, with Season 3 landing in third place with 43.8 million hours watched. Additionally, Season 1 took seventh place (18.2 million), while Season 2 came in eighth (14.2 million).
Other series on the Top 10 this week include Season 1 of “Manifest” (28.4 million), Season 6 of “Peaky Blinders” (13.1 million) and Season 8 of “Alone” (11.4 million).
See Netflix’s Top 10 lists for the week of July 4-10 below, beginning with English-language series and followed by non-English-language TV shows, English-language movies and then non-English-language movies.