‘Bridgerton’ Season 4 Viewership Debuts Slightly Lower Than Season 3, But There’s A Catch

It was a noticeably quieter week for new releases on Netflix, likely by design, as the streaming giant cleared the schedule to give Bridgerton Season 4 the runway it needed to dominate the conversation.

With the return of the Ton, other major titles were few and far between, resulting in a somewhat lopsided chart where English TV thrived while other categories lagged significantly behind. This “clearing of the decks” meant that even titles with decent social buzz, such as Miracle: The Boys of ’80, failed to make the top 10 cut, clocking in under 2.9M views. As we dig into the numbers, it becomes clear that while Benedict Bridgerton’s search for the Lady in Silver drove massive engagement, the lack of depth elsewhere resulted in one of the lower-performing weeks across the board for film and non-English content.

As always, let’s run through the weekly rankings dating back to June 2023. As you can see, a good week on the English TV side, but towards the bottom for all the other three categories:

• English TV: 81,300,000 (Rank 8 of 137 weeks)
• English Film: 63,000,000 (Rank 106 of 137 weeks)
• Non-English TV: 18,200,000 (Rank 127 of 137 weeks)
• Non-English Film: 30,800,000 (Rank 85 of 137 weeks)

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1. Bridgerton Season 4 Is Down Slightly on Season 3

Bridgerton is always a tricky show to guess how well exactly it’s going to do. It’s almost always a given that it’s going to post good numbers, but there’s always a risk with a show like this, where it behaves in an anthology format to an extent, whether people gel with the two leads that front that particular season. Despite some review bombing, the numbers for season 4 are solid. We need to break it down: views are down, but total viewing hours are up. 

Both seasons 3 and 4 were split, so in week 1 (both released on a Thursday), we can compare the first four days with each:

• Bridgerton (Season 3 – Part 1) 
  • Hours: 165,200,000
  • Views: 45,100,000
• Bridgerton (Season 4 – Part 1)
  • Hours: 174,100,000 
  • Views: 39,700,000

Put into a graph with the views for both (alongside a few other split seasons from Netflix’s past), you can see season 4 is only narrowly behind season 3 in the grand scheme of things, and the difference in runtime, which is about 30 minutes, is why there’s probably a discrepancy early on. That is to say, season 4 has a long way to go! 

As you may remember, season 3 ultimately landed in ninth on Netflix’s all-time most-watched chart, so we’ll be keeping an eye on things to come across the next few months, but as it stands, it’s likely falling short. 

In addition to season 4 debuting at the top of the global charts, season 3 and season 1 both re-entered at #8 and #10, respectively, with 2.7M views apiece. 

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2. The Rip won’t enter all-time top 10

Last week, we reported on The Rip likely narrowly missing the all-time top 10, but this week, the gap has widened to the 10th-place spot currently held by Millie Bobby Brown with the movie Damsel. In week 3, The Rip dropped a whopping 64% in viewing hours, with its total views now sitting at 96.6M, nearly 9M off Damsel at the same point in time. 

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3. Finding Her Edge Picks Up Easy Season 2 Renewal

As we covered last week, it was a pretty decent start for Finding Her Edge, and in week 2 viewership didn’t stay flat or go down; it went up 22%, from 33.2M viewing hours to 40.4 M. Reviews haven’t been the best, but given it scored around some of its other YA counterparts, the decision for renewal was an easy one. 

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4. HIS & HERS Primed for All-Time Top 10 Spot

We’ve been beating this drum for a few weeks now, but our prediction remains the same: HIS & HERS will break into Netflix’s all-time top 10 somewhere between position 7 and 10. You can see how it’s tracking against The Night Agent season 1, which ranks at number 10 on the all-time list, and DAHMER, which ranks at number 6. 

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5. Cosmic Princess Kaguya! in Week 2

Last week, we didn’t cover the launch of the new anime movie Cosmic Princess Kaguya! So let’s correct that wrong. First, looking back at other anime movies (that chart, because many don’t), you can see it had an OK start in the top 10s last week with 1M views. 

As of week 2, viewing hours grew 26% but it’s still ultimately quite a way off some of its anime movie counterparts. 

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6. Alpha Males is a super interesting evolution

First off, the Spanish series Alpha Males has plenty more juice, which is why Netflix felt confident enough to give it an early fifth-season renewal. Stacked against prior seasons, all releasing on different days, you can see season 4 defies the odds and goes against the grain in gaining more audience over time, season to season, rather than less. 

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That’s it for this week – we’ll be back next week with more Netflix top 10 stories next week.