‘Bridgerton 2’ becomes OTT's most watched show for the week

Shondaland romance on Netflix has racked up 2.55 billion minutes of viewing time for the week in Nielsen's rankings

The season two debut of Bridgerton has carried the show to a dominant No. 1 in the streaming charts for March 21-27, as per the Hollywood Reporter.

The Netflix and Shondaland series, whose second season premiered March 25, has racked up 2.55 billion minutes of viewing time for the week – inclusive of both seasons. Nielsen’s streaming measurement counts all episodes of the series. That is more than double the amount of time viewers spent watching anything else on all streaming platforms, Nielsen measures.

Netflix’s film The Adam Project finished second overall with 1.2 billion minutes. Aside from Bridgerton, other top original OTT series for March 21-27 include Is It Cake? with 1.19 billion minutes of viewership, The Last Kingdom with 976 million minutes of viewership, Inventing Anna with 558 million minutes of viewership, Bad Vegan with 429 million minutes of viewership, Pieces of Her with 365 million minutes of viewership, Ozark with 312 million minutes of viewership, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Prime Video) with 285 million minutes of viewership, Human Resources with 270 million minutes of viewership and Love Is Blind with 248 million minutes of viewership.

From acquired series, NCIS reigns supreme with 752 million minutes of viewership, Cocomelon comes second with 645 million minutes of viewership, followed by Criminal Minds with 635 million minutes of viewership, Good Girls with 554 million minutes of viewership, Call the Midwife with 415 million minutes of viewership, Grey’s Anatomy with 414 million minutes of viewership, Seinfeld with 377 million minutes of viewership, Gilmore Girls with 349 million minutes of viewership, Supernatural with 343 million minutes of viewership and Bluey (Disney+) with 316 million minutes of viewership.

Bridgerton’s breakout performance is no surprise given Netflix’s internal data had already shown that its second season had the best opening weekend for any English-language series on the platform. Nielsen’s figures lag a few weeks behind.

Netflix Inc recently said that inflation, the war in Ukraine and fierce competition has contributed to a loss of subscribers for the first time in more than a decade for the streaming giant, marking an abrupt shift in fortune for the company that thrived during the pandemic. Since it warned in January of weak subscriber growth, the company has lost nearly half of its value.

The lagging subscriber growth is prompting Netflix to contemplate offering a lower-priced version of the service with advertising, citing the success of similar offerings from rivals HBO Max and Disney+.

But Bridgerton likely helped Netflix nudge up its share of total TV use in March. Among original series, Netflix’s self-explanatory game show Is It Cake? which premiered March 18, grew by almost 2 1/2 times over its performance the previous week.

Nielsen’s streaming ratings cover viewing on TV sets only and don’t include minutes watched on computers or mobile devices. The ratings also only measure US audiences, not those in other countries, and currently only include Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and Prime Video.

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