Netflix Hit Series Was the Most-Watched Streaming Show in March

It was a busy month in the TV world, but the most-streamed show in March wasn’t The Mandalorian, Succession or Yellowjackets. According to the latest data from Neilsen ratings, the Netflix original series Outer Banks was the most-watched series of March 2023.The third season of the show premiered in February, and it may have gotten a boost from real-life cultural relevance.

Nielsen reported that Outer Banks was watched for 4.6 billion minutes on Netflix in March, putting it far ahead of the closest competition at 3.6 billion. In these reports, Nielsen does not specify which season fans are watching, so it could be that returning fans are re-watching older seasons and new fans are catching up based on word-of-mouth praise. The next-most-streamed show was The Mandalorian, but Netflix’s You was not far behind it. Overall, Netflix accounted for 7.3% of total TV viewing in March.

This is a strong reminder that the tastes of TV critics and press coverage don’t always line up with the audience’s favorite shows. Prestige TV dramas and breakout comedies couldn’t compete with this teen drama set in North Carolina’s coastal vacation town. However, in this case, Netflix may have set itself up for success with related reality content.

Outer Banks Season 3 came hot on the heels of Netflix’s Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal, which premiered at the end of February. That real-life case played out in South Carolina, and fans were quick to draw comparisons between the two. Conversations sparked up online about whether Outer Banks might be making homages to the real-life case of Alex Murdaugh, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Outer Banks premiered in 2019 and had its second season in 2021. It was renewed for a third season quickly, and many fans were frustrated by the long wait for the next installment. Still, work on Season 3 would have to have begun before the writers and producers could create any meaningful parallels to the Murdaugh case, so any connection is tangential at best.

Outer Banks was created by Josh Pate, Jonas Pate and Shannon Burke and stars Chase Stokes, Madelyn Cline, Madison Bailey, Jonathan Daviss, Rudy Pankow, Austin North, Charles Esten, Drew Starkey and Carlacia Grant. It follows the lives of teens living in a wealthy coastal town where the divide between wealthy season residents and working-class locals is daunting. It centers around a group of local friends who stumble into a mysterious treasure hunt in the search for a missing person.

Outer Banks Seasons 1 through 3 are streaming now on Netflix. A fourth season has been greenlit but is not in production yet.