U.K. lovers couldn’t wait for Netflix to drop their latest docuseries, Harry & Meghan. Deadline reports that the six-part series about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the first three parts of which were released on Dec. 8, has become Netflix‘s biggest show of the year in the UK after it dropped. The first episode of the series recorded 2.4 million views on smart TV devices during its first day on Netflix. The second episode had 1.5 million streams, while the third garnered managed 800,000. The news comes after ratings for Netflix programs in the U.K. are being recorded for the first time since becoming a member of the country’s television rating group, Barb.
As it turns out, Harry & Meghan have higher ratings than the premiere of Season 5 of The Crown, which generated 1.1 million streams on the day of its premiere in Nov. 2022. The show is based on an award-winning play, The Audience, and chronicles the life of Queen Elizabeth II from the 1940s to modern times, beginning with an inside look into her early reign as the queen, who ascended the throne at the age of 25 after the death of her father, King George VI. Ruling from 1952 until her death in 2022, Queen Elizabeth II was the longest-reigning monarch in British history. She even surpassed the reign of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who spent 63 years on the throne between 1837 and 1901.
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The final three episodes of Harry & Meghan will premiere on Dec. 15. The series takes an intimate look through the couple’s eyes of their early secret romance through Megexit, which occurred in 2020 after they relinquished their responsibilities amid heightened scrutiny of Meghan from the U.K. press. Fearing a repeat of what occurred with his own mother, Princess Diana, resulting in her death in 1997, Harry decided it was in the best interest of their family to leave. The series explores how racism played an integral part in the way the tabloids treated Meghan, and the lack of protection from the royal family to preserve tradition.
