New 'Stranger Things' crushes Netflix's opening-view record
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A heavily anticipated new season of Stranger Things made the episodes the most-watched in a Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) opening week ever by far, as a long U.S. Memorial Day weekend offered subscribers ample time to binge the hit program.
Netflix's (NFLX) Tuesday Top 10 list had the fourth season of the throwback horror-mystery at No. 1 with 286.79 million hours viewed. That total was broken out from other seasons of the show: Stranger Things at No. 3 (38.05 million hours), Stranger Things 2 at No. 5 (22.21 million hours) and Stranger Things 3 at No. 4 (24.29 million hours).
That weeklong chart was dominated by Stranger Things after just a few days of release, as Netflix (NFLX) sought a holiday-weekend content drop to take advantage of pent-up demand for new episodes.

And the season's debut easily topped its previous record-holding English-language series premiere: Season 2 of Bridgerton streamed 193 million hours in its opener.
The show's splash is rippling out even beyond Netflix: The Hollywood Reporter notes that the 1985 Kate Bush song Running Up That Hill, featured in the new Stranger Things season, has hit No. 1 on Apple's iTunes and No. 2 on Spotify's U.S. chart.
Netflix shares closed Tuesday with a gain of 1.2%, at $197.44.
In Nielsen's most recent ratings, covering the end of April, Netflix was riding high with the last episodes of Ozark
leading it to beat other services in viewership.