The Netflix show The Witcher has proven to be incredibly popular. The streaming network announced in its latest earnings report today that The Witcher has been viewed by 76 million households through its first four weeks.
Based on that momentum, The Witcher is on track to become Netflix’s “biggest season one TV series ever.” It’s not clear what Netflix means by “biggest,” however. At the end of 2019, Netflix announced that The Witcher was one of the most popular shows or movies on the network, but this is the first time Netflix is disclosing viewership statistics.
The 76 million number is huge, but it also might not necessarily reflect how many people have watched The Witcher in earnest. Netflix now counts a viewer when someone watches a TV show or movie for at least 2 minutes. Previously, Netflix counted a viewer as an account that watched at least 70 percent of a movie or a single TV show episode.
The new data-reporting system means viewership figures are now about 35 percent higher on average than before. This means The Witcher’s 76 million viewers would be around 49.4 million. Whatever the case, it’s clear The Witcher is off to a very good start on Netflix.
Lauren Hissrich, the showrunner for The Witcher, responded to the Season 1 viewership news by thanking her cast and crew. “I could not ask for a better gift for this tremendous cast and crew,” she said.
The Witcher Season 2 is expected to premiere on Netflix in 2021, and Hissrich has teased that it will more “more linear” following criticisms about the Season 1 timeline. The success of the show helped propel The Witcher 3 to its biggest day ever, while the publisher of the book series from Andrzej Sapkowski ordered 500,000 more copies to meet demand.
