Suits‘ streaming domination has continued with a brand-new record. The USA Network legal drama, which ran from 2011 through 2019, is currently a hit after premiering seasons 1 through 8 on Netflix in addition to the full nine-season series being available on Peacock. As Nielsen’s streaming numbers began to roll in, Suits was revealed to have garnered the most single-week viewership minutes for any acquired streaming program, a record it continued to break after three consecutive weeks.
Per Deadline, Nielsen’s streaming numbers show that the Suits streaming domination is continuing into its sixth week. The series has claimed the No. 1 slot again with an additional 3.6 billion viewing minutes. While it hasn’t broken its own record this time, it has amassed 20 billion minutes over six weeks, claiming that time frame’s No. 2 slot from Wednesday by a factor of 43 million minutes and trailing 7 billion behind the total held by Stranger Things during its season 4 release.
How Suits Beat This Record (And Can It Beat Stranger Things?)
For a series that has been off the air for nearly half a decade to beat a huge contemporary Netflix hit is a remarkable achievement. However, it makes sense once the numbers are broken down. While Wednesday is (so far) a single-season series with 8 episodes, the eight Suits seasons on Netflix include 124 episodes of the legal drama.
The sheer amount of Suits episodes that are available allows viewers to continue binging the series long-term and racking up minutes. For Wednesday to achieve similar numbers, viewers would have had to start the season over again immediately after finishing it. Suits‘ popularity has helped it across that finish line as well, but the sheer volume of the long-running show is a major factor in its streaming success.
This is why it will be much more difficult for Suits to close the gap on Stranger Things in the coming weeks. It’s already billions of minutes behind and its numbers have stopped rising to the same degree as previous weeks, so Suits will likely continue to fall short of the massive four-season Netflix hit if it loses more momentum. While the newer show has fewer episodes, Stranger Things season 4 also boasts extended episode run times that helped propel it straight to the top and will likely keep it there.
