Picture: Netflix
Heartstopper recently returned for its third season, and all eyes are now on season 4, which would, by all accounts, be the final season. So, how is viewership doing for Heartstopper, and will Netflix renew? Officially, Netflix is still hush-hush on the future as of October 22nd, 2024, but we’re predicting a final season renewal or some kind of wrap-up. Here’s what we know, beginning with what showrunner Alice Oseman has said on the record.
Bizarrely, Netflix TUDUM (Netflix’s official fansite) even did a clickbait “Will there be a Heartstopper season 4” post in which they didn’t answer the question but instead talked to Alice Oseman about the potential for a season 4. Oseman said the same thing as they did to other outlets, saying, “As much as I — and everyone else — want the final installment to come to the screen as soon as possible. There are a lot of moving parts to account for that make it hard to solidify anything. But we’re doing our best and will let fans know as soon as we can,” adding, ” I feel like viewers of the show hopefully know that I’m very open and honest online about the process and what’s going on with production. So, of course, I will share anything when I’m able to — but that’s all there is at the moment.”
Elsewhere, we separately summarized Oseman’s statements (in the press and on social media) on season 4 and what we could expect here. Of course, Oseman has gone on record saying that season 4, if renewed, would be the final season, writing on Patreon earlier this year, “If we get a fourth season of the show, it will use volume 6 of Heartstopper and the Nick and Charlie novella as the source material. I am very much hoping that there will be a fourth season, so the show gets to have a proper ending! I’m praying to the gods! Begging on my knees! Having nightmares about it regularly, etc!”
Heartstopper Season 3 – Picture: Netflix
How well is season 3 of Heartstopper performing so far? Will Heartstopper get renewed?
Expecting Renewal
We’re currently expecting a renewal for season 4 as of week 3 of the show’s chart presence, with the caveat that it’d be a wrap-up in some form, whether a final season or a movie of some description. That said, given the performance thus far, the show will be lucky to some degree to get a final sign-off.
That’s because viewership has declined season over season, and season 3 saw a big 42% drop-off in viewing hours in week 2 and didn’t feature in the top 10 charts at all by week 3, where it’d have needed 2M views to qualify.
| Week in Top 10 | Week Period | Hours Viewed | Views / CVE | Weekly Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | September 29th, 2024 to October 6th, 2024 | 21,300,000 (New) | 4,500,000 | 4 |
| 2 | October 6th, 2024 to October 13th, 2024 | 12,400,000 (-42%) | 2,600,000 | 7 |
Let’s stack up the performance of that against prior seasons:
If we plot viewership week-to-week, we can see that season 3 kept pace with the first two seasons in weeks 1 and 2 but began diving significantly by week 3. This suggests that dedicated fans are bingeing the series early but that there isn’t significant new viewership jumping in on the show.
We can also see that Heartstopper is running out of steam using external tools. This is perhaps most pronounced on Google Trends, where we saw a big collapse in interest between seasons 1 and 2, which has continued, albeit to a lesser degree, for season 3.
Picture: Google Trends / FlixPatrol
Moving to FlixPatrol, which measures the daily top 10s in over 90 countries, we can see that within two weeks of being on Netflix, season 3 had dropped out of the daily top 10s in all regions, contrasted with season 2, which lasted for three weeks, before dropping out.
Now it’s over to you—do you think Netflix should renew Heartstopper for a final season? Let us know in the comments.
Netflix Synopsis: "Teens Charlie and Nick discover their unlikely friendship might be something more as they navigate school and young love in this coming-of-age series."
