Stranger Things Has Finally Lost Its Top Spot On Netflix To A Surprising Series
Look out Stranger Things, it appears there is a new leader in the Netflix clubhouse and another series has taken the top position
Netflix is the behemoth of the streaming world. Amazon, HBO Max, Peacock, Disney+, and Apple TV have spent millions trying to catch up with them by producing great original content to drive up views. Unfortunately for them, Netflix has Stranger Things, which continuously brings in subscribers and tops the Nielsen streaming charts. While the Nielsen Ratings have traditionally been used to gauge a TV series’ success by counting the number of viewers tuned in, it adjusted its counting to the number of minutes viewers spent watching a series. Season 4 of the nostalgic sci-fi thriller brought in a whopping 1.352 billion hours, coming up short of reaching the most by any Netflix series. That title is held by Squid Game, which has a monstrous 1.650 billion hours. Even though Stranger Things has been keeping strong since the Season 4 release, it just got knocked from the top spot.
Deadline reports that an unlikely rival has unseated the king of the Netflix series. The drama, Virgin River, dropped its fourth season on July 20 and has become the number one viewed show on the streaming service. It brought in 2.6 billion minutes of streaming time the week of its release. Stranger Things came up short of the medical drama by *only* bringing in 2.3 billion minutes. Netflix took notice of the success of Season 4 and renewed Virgin River for the fifth season. It is important to note that the Nielsen reports of streaming minutes come about a month after the numbers are collected, so as the report comes out and Netflix basks in their success of grabbing the two top spots, it couldn’t have been that much of a surprise. There has been a lot of buzz around the show.
Virgin River is a stark difference from the heavier Stranger Things. It centers around Mel Monroe (Alexandra Breckenridge), a nurse who moves from Los Angeles to a small remote town in Northern California. She is searching for a fresh start in life and believes that her one-year contract to assist the local doctor as a midwife is what she needs. She soon discovers that small-town life brings with it its own complications and isn’t as uncomplicated as she hoped. The series has done reasonably well on Rotten Tomatoes with critics, scoring an overall 84%. Audiences, however, are much harsher, only giving it a 58%. The series also stars Martin Henderson, Colin Lawrence, Jenny Cooper, Tim Matheson, and Annette O’Toole.
While Virgin River and Stranger Things have done exceptionally well, and both have been renewed for a fifth season, the latter is ending. It was confirmed that Stranger Things Season 5 would signal the end of the show, bringing this competition to an end regardless of the numbers. However, Netflix has little to fear; in the Nielsen top ten streaming minutes, it owns nine of them. With these two holding the top spot, They are followed by The Grey Man, Resident Evil, and Alone. Classics like Gray’s Anatomy and NCIS also appear on the list. Only Amazon’s The Boys could break the top ten and prevent Netflix from getting the clean sweep.
