‘Stranger Things 4’ Crosses Billion-Hour Viewing Mark, Netflix Says

Season four of Stranger Things has joined an exclusive club at Netflix.

Following the release of the last two episodes of the season on July 1, the show passed the billion-hour mark in viewing worldwide, according to the streamer’s internal measurement. It’s the first English language series, and just the second in any language, to rack up more than a billion hours of viewing time.

Stranger Things 4 now has 1.15 billion hours of viewing time over its first 28 days of release, encompassing both parts of the season. The first seven episodes scored 930.32 million hours over their first 28 days, and episodes eight and nine accounted for just under 221 million hours of the 301.28 million hours worldwide for the week of June 27-July 3. (In the case of split seasons like Stranger Things and Ozark earlier this year, Netflix adds viewing time of the second batch of episodes only to the 28-day total.)

Among all Netflix originals in their first 28 days, only Squid Game (1.65 billion hours) has a bigger viewing time. With three-plus weeks left to rack up more viewing for the final two episodes, Stranger Things will likely get close to or even pass the Korean hit.

Despite only being available for three days, the final two episodes — which run nearly four hours combined — accounted for almost three quarters (73 percent) of Stranger Things’ season four viewing last week. The first three seasons also hung around in Netflix’s English language top 10, as they’ve done for the past month and a half.

Season four has broken several viewing records, including the biggest debut weekend for a Netflix series by the streamer’s own metrics and Nielsen’s highest weekly viewing tally in the United States since the company began its weekly streaming rankings.