Netflix’s Daredevil Series Jumps Into Nielsen’s Top 10 Streaming Shows

John F. Trent |

Jan 20, 2022

The latest Nielsen numbers surprisingly saw Netflix’s Daredevil series jump into the top 10.

Nielsen recently released data for their top 10 most streamed original shows for the week of December 20th to December 26th. As noted by Nielsen their data is specifically for viewers in the United States who are watching through their television.

Netflix’s The Witcher dominated the list with a total of 2.734 billion minutes viewed or 45.5 million hours. In a distant second was Netflix’s Emily In Paris, and the finale for Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye series both seeing their watch time at 938 million minutes or 15.6 million hours.

The Wheel of Time came in fourth with 638 million minutes or 10.6 million, a decent jump from the previous week, where the show’s watch time hit an all time low at 467 million minutes or 7.78 million hours. The reason for the jump is more than likely people binging the entire series following the eighth and final episode being released.

The rest of the top 10 included Lost In Space, The Great British Baking Show, Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, Marvel’s Daredevil, Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster, and Money Heist.

Marvel’s Daredevil came in 8th spot with 195 million minutes watched or 3.25 million hours.

Interestingly, in the same week, Daredevil did not crap the top 10 from Netflix’s self-reporting of their top 10 shows in the United States.

That list saw The Witcher: Season 2 take the top spot for the second week in a row. It was followed up by Emily in Paris: Season 2. The Witcher: Season 1 rounded out the top three.

The rest of the top 10 included The Queen of Flow: Season 2, CoComelon: Season 4, Selling Tampa: Season 1, Emily in Paris: Season 1, CoComelon: Season 1, CoComelon: Season 3, and Lost in Space: Season 3.

Netflix does not release hours viewed when you sort their shows based on country.

As for the discrepancy between Nielsen’s data and Netflix’s, CoComelon is not considered a Netflix original by Nielsen, and tracks that show’s numbers under their “Acquired” tab.

It’s likely The Queen of Flow would also be segmented under acquired as the show is produced by Sony Television and Teleset. Netflix also doesn’t reveal their viewership data for shows like Criminal Minds and NCIS.

As for Selling Tampa, it’s possible Nielsen segments out reality shows albeit they do include The Great British Baking Show. Nielsen also does not segment the separate shows by season as Netflix does. If Netflix were to do so, there would be four open spots on their chart.

It’s possible the Nielsen and Netflix ratings line up if you take these factors into account. The only real big question mark is Selling Tampa: Season 1.

Otherwise, Nielsen’s data showing The Witcher, Emily In Paris, and Lost In Space as the top three biggest Netflix shows matches up with Netflix’s data.

As for the Netflix’s Daredevil series jumping onto the charts, it’s more than likely due to a number of factors including Vincent D’Onofrio reprising his role as Kingpin in the Hawkeye series. He previously played the character in Daredevil.

Another factor is Charlie Cox’s cameo as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Cox portrayed Matt Murdock and his alter-ego Daredevil in Netflix’s Daredevil series.

A third factor, is that Netflix’s Daredevil series was actually well received by audiences and is still some of the best comic book television available out there especially the early episodes of Season 2 that introduce Frank Castle and The Punisher.