Pictured: Virgin River, Top Boy, and Burning Body
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending September 11th, 2023. This week, we’ll be covering Virgin River, Top Boy, One Piece, Dear Child, Burning Body, Heart of Stone, and A Time Called You.
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, which has just been updated with even more data from the Nielsen top 10s.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from September 4th, 2023 to September 10th, 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. Virgin River and Top Boy are back and they’re doing quite good.
The new (and shortened) season of Virgin River is back, and for its first four days, the fourth season of the romance series launched with 9M CVEs, just a tad under the launches of seasons 3 and 4, which were released respectively on a Wednesday and a Friday. So there is a little decay from last season, but nothing to be alarmed about. The series has already been renewed for a sixth season.
A new (and final) season of the British series Top Boy was also back last week, and this one did great, too, with 5.6M CVEs over its first four days, a noticeably higher launch than the one of season 2. Too bad it’s ending!
2. Dear Child broke a record last week.
German thriller limited series Dear Child quietly broke a record last week for its first four days of release.
With 10.2M CVEs, it became the best launch for an international series released on a Thursday, besting the Danish limited series The Nurse.
The reviews are good, so it might continue to perform over the next few weeks.
3. Burning Body? Lukewarm at best.
Spanish limited series Burning Body did not put a fire under the Top 10 this week as it debuted with 4.1M CVEs over its first three days, far from the Spanish successes of Muted and The Snow Girl.
4. A Time Called You called all the fans of South Korean romance series.
A new binge-released Netflix South Korean romance series just dropped and provides additional proof that the audience for these romance series is very faithful but also niche.
With a launch of 1.4M CVEs, it sits exactly in the same vicinity as the launches of the other binge-released Netflix South Korean shows in our dataset. It’s nothing groundbreaking but steady thus far.
5. One Piece is sailing smoothly, maybe too smoothly.
In its second week, One Piece improved its hours viewed by 4%, not the best or the worst transition from week 1 to week 2 we have seen for a new Netflix series released on a Thursday.
Week 1 to week 2 percentage increase/decrease in viewing hours
(Red: cancelled series / Green: Renewed series / Black: Ended series)
Now, the problem with One Piece is that it’s an expensive series and thus far it’s doing solid numbers but not extraordinary numbers.
In that sense, it reminds me of 1899, the very much hyped and expensive German series that was ultimately canceled despite solid numbers. I’m not saying One Piece is getting canceled since it’s doing way better than 1899 or Resident Evil. But it’s also doing noticeably less than Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, the show currently ranked 10th in the all-time chart, a chart that One Piece looks like it’ll miss by a mile.
Evolution of One Piece week on week
Next week, we will have the answer to our most pressing question: how will it do with the feared third-week drop? My forecast is unchanged: One Piece will get renewed, but its second season will have to do better or be cheaper if it wants to have a third one.