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'Wednesday' Is Netflix's No. 5 Most Watched Show Ever, in Any Language

Netflix says that in 12 days, Wednesday has been watched for 752.5 million total hours. That's more than Bridgerton racked up in twice as much time.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials
  • Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
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Joan E. Solsman
2 min read
Wednesday dances in a black lacy dress.

Jenna Ortega stars as Wednesday Addams in Netflix's hit new show. 

 Netflix

Netflix's Wednesday has been binge-watched enough in just 12 days to make Netflix's No. 5 show of all time, according to watch-time stats released Tuesday.  

The show, a coming-of-age supernatural dark comedy starring Jenna Ortega as a new spin on Wednesday Addams, has been watched worldwide for a total of 752.5 million hours from its release date on Nov. 23 through Sunday. Netflix ranks the popularity of its shows by the total number of hours they're watched within their first 28 days of release.

By comparison, the second season of Bridgerton was watched for 656.3 million hours in its first 28 days of release. Wednesday still has more than two weeks left in its window of time to keep racking up watch hours. 

It remains behind the 1.35 billion hours watched of Stranger Things 4, Netflix's most-watched English language series, as well as the 1.65 billion hours devoted to Squid Game, which is the most watched show on Netflix overall, according to the company's charts. For now, Netflix's No. 3 and No. 4 shows still ahead of Wednesday are, respectively, Dahmer at 856.2 million and the final season of Money Heist, with 792.2 million. 

For years, Netflix was notoriously tight-lipped about its viewership. Beau Willimon -- the creator of House of Cards, which initially put Netflix's original programming on the map -- once said the company wouldn't even share viewership metrics with him. 

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But within the last two years, Netflix has become much more open about the popularity of its shows and movies to help it recruit talent and stoke buzz. First, Netflix added a top-trending ranking to its service, so people can see the most popular titles streaming on Netflix in their country on any given day. Then it also started publicly sharing popularity stats for certain titles, publicizing the number of accounts that watched two minutes of a particular title in its first month of release.

In November, Netflix launched a website posting weekly charts of its most popular shows and movies, as well as a global ranking of all-time most watched titles. The charts are updated every week and ranked by the total number of hours that subscribers spent watching them. 

The rankings represent an unprecedented trove of data about what's popular on Netflix, detailing the most popular titles in the last week not only globally but also for more than 90 individual countries. It's the most transparency that Netflix has ever adopted for its viewership, but it's also meant to help subscribers like you have a better grip on what's most popular on the world's biggest subscription streaming service.