‘Tiger King’ Rakes in More Than 34M US Viewers in First 10 Days

Netflix’s latest docuseries, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, drove in wild viewing numbers. According to Nielsen estimates, and as reported by Variety, the seven-part docuseries depicting the murder-for-hire plot that landed Joe Exotic in jail became one of Netflix’s biggest-ever original shows, surpassing even Season 2 of Stranger Things. According to viewing data, within its first 10 days of streaming, Tiger King drew in 34.3 unique viewers. For comparison, Stranger Things‘ second outing drew an audience of 31.2 million unique viewers in that same time period. Season 3 of the series, which debuted over the summer, reached 36.3 million people.

Debuting on the streamer on March 20, Tiger King had an average minute audience of 280,000 U.S viewers and reached 741,000 unique viewers on premiere day. Those numbers quickly skyrocketed as word of the series spread and it became a social media sensation. By its third day on the streamer, the series’ average minute audience surpassed 1 million, ticking up to 2 million by day seven, and 4 million by day nine.

On an average per-minute basis, Tiger King raked in an audience of 19.0 million among U.S. viewers from March 20-29, whereas Stranger Things Season 2 pulled in 17.5 million and Season 3 pulled in 20.5 million. The series was also the most-tweeted series tracked by Nielsen, with 1.8 million total organic (nonpaid) interactions on Twitter, and it has consistently ranked as the No. 1 most popular title overall in the U.S. over the past two weeks on Netflix.

At this time, Netflix has not released its own viewing numbers. The streamer is notoriously secretive when it comes to viewing data, and only recently revealed how it counts a view. According to previous statements from the streamer, a view only counts once an account has watched at least 70 percent of the episode or film’s runtime, including the credits. Any subsequent views of the film or series from the same account do not count. Netflix has also said that he information “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

As Tiger King continues to inspire dozens of memes and plenty of commentary online, even sparking fresh clues in the case of Carole Baskin’s missing second husband Don Lewis, the streamer is reportedly gearing up to drop a brand new episode. Not yet confirmed by Netflix, but rather by Jeff Lowe, the episode will be “a live-based episode” similar to “a reunion.”

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is currently available for streaming on Netflix. The alleged special episode does not have a premiere date, though Lowe claimed it would drop sometime this week. Stay tuned to PopCulture.com for the latest information.