The latest batch of streaming ratings from Nielsen have been released, revealing the top show for streaming audiences wasn’t HBO’s The Last of Us. According to the latest data, which is a month behind and measures the week of February 6th to February 12th, Netflix’s You season 4 part 1 was the most watched TV show or movie on all of streaming, beating out the hit PlayStation adaptation by a big degree. In just the first four days that the show was streaming it was watched over 1.733 billion minutes, compared to The Last of Us‘ 1.109 billion minutes in that same timeframe.
Now, does this paint a picture of Netflix’s hit series being more popular than The Last of Us? When you look at how Nielsen collects their data though it shows a different story entirely. First, Nielsen’s data comes exclusively from streaming on televisions, which means it doesn’t count computers or mobile devices in its numbers, it also doesn’t tally the linear cable viewers in the same charts. Knowing that, these numbers for The Last of Us are exclusively for its viewership on HBO Max and not HBO subscribers on cable.
There’s also the matter of episode count that can inflate the metrics. When these numbers were tallied, You had 35 episodes available to watch on Netflix. Though most of the viewership was likely from fans watching the new season, a fresh batch of content always spurs interest from new viewers to start the series from the beginning, to catch up. By comparison, The Last of Us had only released five episodes to that point, just over half of its first season in total. Taking that into account, HBO’s series being streamed over a billion minutes with 1/7 the amount of episodes is yet another sign that the series has been a huge hit.
Ever since The Last of Us premiered on HBO it has shown remarkable, even record setting, viewership. Episode 8, the most recent one in the series, had 8.1 million viewers, an increase of 74% compared to the series premiere just weeks prior. You can find the Top 10 most streamed movies and shows according to Nielsen below.
