Pictured: We Have a Ghost, Outer Banks, and The Strays
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending February 26th, 2023. This will be a bumper edition of the Top 10 Report, given there have been so many big launches and exciting things to discuss.
Every Tuesday, Netflix updates its top 10 stats page with 40 new hourly figures of the top movies and shows of the past seven days. If you want to browse the top 10 hourly data easily, visit our tool.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from February 20th, 2023, to February 26th, 2023, we’ll use “Complete Viewings Equivalent,” or CVE, expressed in millions. That means we divide the hours viewed announced by Netflix by the runtime of films or series. It allows for better comparisons between films and series, but it’s not an audience metric. It is the minimum number of viewings if they were all complete from the first second to the last of the film or season.
1. Outer Banks Season 3 launches with a bang.
The third season of Outer Banks is doing great, thank you very much. With 17.7M CVEs over its first four days, it’s the third-best launch for a new season of a US show released on a Thursday, on the heels of the second season of Ginny & Georgia.
Outer Banks Season 3 launch vs other Netflix Thursday Series Launches CVE Viewership
It is also a better launch than the one of Season 2, but we’ll know more next week about how it’s tracking against the second season.
Outer Banks Season 3 vs Season 2 CVE Viewership
2. We Have a Ghost and The Strays do very decent launches.
We Have a Ghost was the main title from Netflix on the film side last week, and its launch is quite good, with 19.1M CVEs over its first weekend.
It’s not a top-tier launch, but neither is this a top-tier film from Netflix’s lineup as a B-tier film, it did a better launch than A Madea Homecoming and The Curse of Bridge Hollow.
We Have a Ghost vs. other Netflix Comedy Launches
Coming from the UK, tense thriller The Strays also did a perfect start with 17.8M CVEs over its first five days and the second-best launch for an international film in the English language released on a Wednesday.
The Strays vs. other Netflix Movies CVE viewership in week 1
3. Murdaugh Murders makes a killer start.
Netflix documentary series usually tend to have a timely release schedule, but not quite as timely as the release of the Murdaugh Murders, given the trial of this case is happening right now in the US.
True crime documentary series plus a timely release date equal a record-breaking launch for Murdaugh Murders. With 17M CVEs over its first five days, it is the best launch for any documentary series released on a Wednesday.
Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal week 1 CVE viewership
4. Season 5 of Formula 1: Drive to Survive attracts its fans
Season 5 of the documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive was released last week and it did exactly the same numbers as the previous season, with 4M CVEs over its first weekend.
Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 5 vs Season 4 CVE Viewership
5. Triptych is on fire.
The first season of Triptych did a great launch with 9M CVEs over its first five days, the best launch for a new series coming from Latin America in my book, not far from the best launch of an international series released on a Wednesday (10.5M for Polish series High water). So quite an encouraging start!
Triptych CVE Viewership vs other International Releases
Overall, it was quite a good week for new Netflix films and series, with many decent numbers.
This is an English version of the Netflix & Chiffres newsletter.