
Netflix’s Season 2 of Bridgerton was streaming’s most-watched title for the week of April 28-March 3, according to Nielsen’s rankings, with a total of 3.2 billion minutes viewed during the week actually growing from its debut performance the week before.

Netflix’s Bridgerton was viewed for more than 2.5 billion minutes during the week of its Season 2 debut, according to Nielsen’s newly released streaming Top 10 rankings. The Chris Van Dusen-created period romance was easily the No. 1 program on streaming for the week of March 21-27 on Nielsen’s charts, even though only its first season was available for the majority of that week, as Season 2 premiered on March 25.

Another week, another record for Season 2 of Bridgerton on Netflix’s Top 10 list. After last week becoming the most viewed English-language TV title in its premiere weekend, for the week of March 28, the Shonda Rhimes-produced drama broke the record for most-viewed title in a week on the English-language TV list, with 251.7 million hours viewed (Squid Game holds the overall weekly record, with 571.8 million hours viewed).

The second season of Bridgerton is shaping up to be as big a hit for Netflix as its predecessor. The streamer’s weekly top 10 list for March 21-27 shows the Regency-era romance having a huge first weekend. In the three days after its March 25 premiere, Season 2 of Bridgerton amassed 193 million hours of viewing time worldwide — the highest for any English-language Netflix series in its first three days. Season 2 made the top 10 in 92 of the 93 countries where Netflix keeps track of rankings (Japan was the only outlier).

Just as Entertainment Weekly shuts down print, Netflix asks producer Shonda Rhimes hard-hitting questions, ‘When did you first know “Bridgerton” would be a global phenomenon?’

Filming is paused indefinitely while the streamer and Shondaland producers create a timetable for a return to production. It is unclear whether a cast or crew member contracted the virus, but they are currently isolating.

The streaming giant has handed out a third and fourth season renewal for the period drama from executive producer Shonda Rhimes.

Bridgerton jumped back in front of Cobra Kai to retake the top spot in Nielsen’s U.S. streaming rankings for the week of Jan. 11-17, with sci-fi movie Outside the Wire helping Netflix sweep the top 10. The Shonda Rhimes-produced period romance drew just shy of 1.4 billion total minutes of viewing, outpacing Cobra Kai, which had 1 billion.

According to Netflix’s shadowy numbers-crunchers, a record 82 million global households glimpsed the Shonda Rhimes-produced period drama in its first 28 days of release, making it the streamer’s No. 1 series launch in history — ongoing, limited or otherwise.

The period drama based on Julia Quinn’s best-selling novels marks Shonda Rhimes’ first series for the streaming giant.

The new Netflix series Bridgerton joins a tiny but growing handful of prestige shows adapted from mass-market romance books. What took so long?