Pictured: Our Little Secret, Senna and The Madness – Picture Credits: Netflix
Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hourly figures drop for the week ending December 1st, 2024. We’ll be recapping and diving deep into all the numbers and telling the stories of the movies and series that featured (or didn’t).
Every Tuesday, Netflix updates its top 10 stats page with 40 new hourly figures of the top movies and shows of the past seven days. If you want to browse the top 10 hourly data easily, visit our tool, which has just been updated with even more data from the Nielsen top 10s.
Note: In this report of Netflix’s hours viewed from November 25th, 2024, to December 1st, 2024, 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. Our Little Secret is not so secret anymore.
Netflix’s new queen of rom-coms, Lindsay Lohan, made her return with Our Little Secret, and her fans were ready: the film debuted with 32.4M CVEs in 5 days, marking the third-best opening of the year for a Wednesday release. This performance far surpasses the three previous Netflix Christmas films released since early November.
2. Senna stalls.
Senna is one of Netflix’s marquee international series to close out the year. Imagine a biopic about a Formula 1 driver of Brazilian origin—a key figure in one of Netflix’s largest global markets. Netflix spared no effort in promoting the series, even granting it a custom Netflix Original logo at the start of each episode. In short, this was a high-stakes release for Netflix to cap off the year. However, the numbers are rather disappointing, as the series only achieved the third-best debut for a Latin American series released on a Friday.
It also falls short of the launch of the French series La Cage, the only other international sports series released on a Friday in my dataset, which just got renewed for a season 2.
Finally, the series only ranks as the 12th-best debut of 2024 for a new international series released on a Friday. Not exactly what you’d call pole position… But there’s a silver lining: the series currently boasts an impressive 8.6/10 average on IMDb from 3,000 voters, which should easily secure it a spot in the Top 10 most well-received new series of the year. This strong reception might even help it maintain good viewership in the weeks to come.
3. Who Killed JonBenét Ramsay? Breaks a Small Netflix Record
A record was broken this week: the best debut for a documentary series released on a Monday. Granted, there are only two documentary series in this category, so it was relatively easy for the true crime docuseries Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsay to claim the top spot with a 7-day launch of 13.4M CVEs. The case is old and has been dissected extensively on American TV, but there are still people eager to learn more.
4. The Madness
The Thanksgiving mini-series The Madness had a decent debut, landing in the Top 10 launches of 2024 with 9.3M CVEs. Both the creator and the show’s star have hinted at the possibility of a sequel “if Netflix agrees,” and the numbers after 4 days are fairly encouraging. That said, the series might not be exceptional enough, both in terms of viewership and quality, to have Netflix reconsider and grant a second season.
5. Is It Cake? Holiday might be cake but it’s no success.
I have zero cooking shows released on a Thursday in my dataset, so you’ll need to use your imagination to judge whether the launch of Is It Cake? Holiday was successful. Personally, I’d say no—barely outperforming Dubai Bling despite being released during the Thanksgiving period isn’t impressive at all.
6. A slew of average launches.
It’s a week of middling debuts, so let’s round them up in one convenient section and start with the Indian film Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, whose 3-day launch of around 3.2M CVEs is right in line with the average for Indian film releases this year.
Nothing screams “average” this week more than the debut of Anthony Jeselnik’s special, Bones and All, which opened with 2.4M EVCs in 6 days—the most recurring viewership figure since the start of 2024.
The Creature Cases waited until its fourth season to make it into a weekly Top 10, and with 2.3M CVEs in 7 days, it’s right in line with the average debut for children’s animated series released on a Monday.
Let’s wrap up this average week with the launch of the South Korean series The Trunk, which started with 2M EVCs in 3 days, right in line with the year’s average debuts. Average, I told you!
7. The surprising renewal of The Law According To Lidia Poet.
Italian series The Law According to Lidia Poet has been renewed for a third season, and you may remember that I was very skeptical that it would be after the disappointing launch of its second season, which had a -60 % drop compared to season 1.
Well, it seems it’s enough for Netflix Italy, but there might also be some other explanations, such as a renewal for two seasons after the release of season 1 like Netflix used to do a lot when a new season overperforms. Netflix has also pointed out that a huge success in the series’ home country might be enough to secure a renewal, and in Italy, the second season has been in the weekly Top 10 for five weeks in a row. Sometimes, the numbers do not tell everything!
That’s all for this week. Please let us know what you think in the comments below.
