Stranger Things 4 was watched for a billion+ hours already

Netflix Stranger Things (Image credit: Netflix)

What you need to know

Stranger Things 4 was watched for 1.15 billion hours according to Netflix.
The only other show to cross the billion-hour mark was Squid Game.

The fourth season of Stranger Things has proven particularly popular, Netflix says. Who could see that coming?

According to a news release, the hugely popular Netflix show's fourth season was so eagerly awaited that it managed to rack up a massive 1.15 billion hours of viewership during its first 28 days of availability. For comparison, that was almost double the 656 million hours managed by the second season of another fairly popular show — Bridgerton.

Netflix says that Stranger Things 4 was so popular that it also managed to drag earlier seasons along for the ride, with the first three all seeing big streaming numbers.

Stranger Things 4 returned with new episodes as viewers rocked out to the "most metal concert in the history of the world" — thanks to Eddie Munson and Metallica. The record-breaking series pulled in 301.28M hours viewed, making it the most viewed title this week and appearing in the Top 10 in 93 countries. The series holds the #1 spot on the Most Popular English TV List with 1.15Bn hours viewed. Additionally, Seasons 1-3 held their standing on the English TV List - Season 1 with 34.47M hours viewed, Season 2 with 30.26 hours viewed and Season 3 with 30.28M hours viewed this week.

This comes amid growing competition from the likes of Apple TV+ and Disney+, with popular shows available on both. There's something special about Stranger Things, however, with the show's final season split into two volumes. And some very long episodes likely helped to boost those viewership numbers somewhat, too.

As popular as Stranger Things is, it isn't the first show to reach the billion-hour milestone. That honor went to Squid Game, whose star Hoyeon will soon make her Apple TV+ debut.

If you want to enjoy Stranger Things in style, be sure to check out our list of the best Apple TV deals on the market today.

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Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.

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