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Stranger Things Crushes All Netflix Metrics
Courtesy of Netflix
Over the past decade, Netflix’s Stranger Things has become a rare cultural and financial juggernaut with a reach far beyond its hit show.
The Big Picture: While the show House of Cards introduced Netflix to the world of scripted TV, it was the debut of Stranger Things in 2016 that brought the streamer’s original programming into the mainstream and spread that influence into music, live events, and consumer products. There may never be another show with quite the same impact on contemporary Hollywood.
Behind The Scenes: Stranger Things hasn’t just been the defining show of the past decade — it’s also defined how TV has changed during that time.
Overall, Stranger Things has racked up 1.2 billion views, including 102.6 million in the first 25 days for the first four episodes of the new season — making it the most-watched show on Netflix (and, by extension, all of streaming) by a long shot.
It’s also inspired several successful spinoffs, including a stage show (four Tony Awards), a global live-event series (850,000 ticket sales), and several novels and comic books (3.1 million sales).
Songs featured on the show routinely blow up, such as Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill.” This season, Spotify streams of Diana Ross’ “Upside Down” have skyrocketed 1,250%, and Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” (1987) jumped by 880%.
Brands have also enjoyed the Stranger Things halo, including Eggo Waffles-maker Kellogg, which saw sales jump by 14% after the first season. Interest in the game Dungeons & Dragons has also risen by 673% since 2016.
Roll Credits: Just looking at the economic impact of the show itself, five seasons of Stranger Things have “created more than 8,000 production jobs in the US and contributed $1.4 billion to the national GDP,” according to Variety. In Georgia alone, the show employed over 2,000 vendors. Considering how uncertain the economic outlook has been for small businesses in recent years, Stranger Things may have kept many from going… well… upside down.
Next Season… Oh, Wait: With Season 5 already ranking as the most-watched show last week in 90 of the 93 countries Netflix operates in (and the first show to have all of its seasons in the Top 10 simultaneously), Stranger Things could take the crown as the most-watched scripted show ever.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.