‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Premiere Smashes Records, Tops Its Own Historic Viewership

Netflix’s hit series Stranger Things has returned, and its fifth season is already making history. Over Thanksgiving weekend in the US, the first four episodes of the final season drew an enormous audience, breaking Nielsen’s record for the most-watched streaming show in a single week.

According to Nielsen, viewers logged 8.46 billion minutes of the show between November 24 and 30, surpassing the fourth season by a wide margin.

Season 5 stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, and Gaten Matarazzo. Co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer returned to bring the long-running series to its conclusion after a three-year wait. The previous record-holder was also Stranger Things, with Season 4 tallying 7.2 billion minutes in its debut week.

Nielsen’s report offers more insight into the audience: about 57 percent of viewers watched all four released episodes, and 59 percent were adults aged 18 to 49. While Season 4 premiered on a Friday, Season 5 launched midweek at 5 pm PT, right in the middle of the holiday season.

Despite fewer episodes being released initially, four compared to seven in Season 4, the premiere week still set new records.

Even before the new episodes dropped, viewers were revisiting earlier seasons. In the week leading up to the premiere, Stranger Things returned to the Nielsen Top 10, racking up 1.6 billion minutes of viewing.

The remaining four episodes are scheduled to release on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, and it will be interesting to see if the series can push the numbers even higher.

This record-breaking performance shows just how powerful Stranger Things remains as a cultural phenomenon. The combination of a devoted fanbase, a suspenseful storyline, and the final season’s anticipation clearly worked in the show’s favor. It’s exciting to see a series maintain and even grow its audience after so many years.

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