Devil in Ohio – Picture: Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix © 2022
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending September 4th, 2022. Devil in Ohio, I Am A Killer, Partner Track, Virgin River, Locke & Key, and The Sandman are all in the spotlight this week.
Netflix updates its top 10 stats page weekly with 40 new hourly figures of the top movies and shows of the past 7 days. If you want to browse the top 10 hourly data easily, visit our tool.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from August 29th to September 4th, we’ll use “Complete Viewings Equivalent” or CVE, expressed in millions. That means we divide the hours viewed announced by Netflix by the runtime of films or series. It allows for better comparisons between films and series but it’s not an audience metric. It is the minimum number of viewings if they were all complete from the first second to the last of the film or season.
1. A Tale of Two Series: Partner Track and The Sandman
Picture: Netflix
Two new English shows released over the last few weeks are waiting for renewal: The Sandman and Partner Track.
They could not be any more different regarding genres, budget, targeted demographics, and viewership. The numbers for the second week of Partner Track, despite being better than the figures for week 1, are still quite dismal. In contrast, The Sandman continues to soar in its fifth week.
Even if viewership is not the only metric considered when a renewal decision has to be made, it is still better to have The Sandman’s numbers than Partner Track. If they continue to sink next week, it might be the end of the track for Partner Track.
CVE Viewership of Partner Track compared to other English language Netflix shows
2. Devil in Ohio starts slow-ish.
Devil in Ohio – Picture: Netflix
Some series need not worry about renewals and cancellations; they make up most of the US offering of Netflix series lately. Devil in Ohio is the latest and its opening weekend was quite slow as it logged 6.1 million CVE. It’s a better start than Echoes but we’re still far from the nearly 12 million CVE amassed by The Woman in the House... back in January.
Chart on how Devil in Ohio debuted in its first weekend
3. I Am a Killer is not killing it in the Top 10s
Every week, some true crime documentary or true crime docu-series manages to make its way to the Top 10, and last week, it was the third season of I am a Killer. With only 4.1 million CVE over its first six days, it’s quite a lackluster opening week, trailing far behind Worst Roomate Ever and its 13.3 million CVE.
I Am A Killer S3 debut compared to other Docuseries
4. Virgin River and Locke & Key end their (visible) run.
This week, we said goodbye to the visible run of the 4th season of Virgin River and the 3rd season of Locke & Key after several weeks in the charts.
Both seasons are interesting because the previous ones were released around the time the first Top 10s appeared, so we can compare them over their first weeks of release, and the results are quite interesting.
Let’s start with Virgin River and look at those parallel lines over the first 40 days.
Virgin River Season 4 vs Season 3 in Viewership
Both seasons stayed 6 weeks in the charts, highlighting the steadiness of the viewership and how the series’ fanbase rallies when a new season is released while even gaining some new fans along the way. That’s no doubt why it’s been renewed for season 5 and teased that more is on the way.
Locke & Key tells a different story for its third season.
It came out with a bit more viewership than the previous season (maybe because it was announced that it was the final season so the fanbase was there bright and early to watch), resulting in a bigger drop after 10-12 days than for season 2. It could also suggest that viewers of season 2 did not come back for season 3 (yet) or stopped after a few episodes. We’ll never know for sure.
Locke and Key Season 2 vs Season 3 Viewership
