'The Irishman' Draws 17.1 Million Viewers on Netflix; According To Nielsen

Lately, there have been several instances when Netflix has been rather revealing about the viewership of its shows - as opposed to being secretive about it. A lot was riding on how the streamer's mega release, The Irishman that was out almost 10 days ago. One wondered is the numbers for the same would be out and they are now out according to Nielsen.

The mafia saga directed by Martin Scorcese was watched by 17.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen in the first five days of its streaming. In comparison, Sandra Bullock starrer, Bird Box that was released on the streamer in the same month last year went on to grab 26 million viewers in the first seven days.

On its premiere date, “The Irishman” brought in an average minute audience of nearly 2.6 million U.S. viewers and 3.9 million unique U.S. viewers, per Nielsen. Across its first five days of availability, the film garnered an average minute audience of nearly 13.2 million viewers with a reach of over 17.1 million unique U.S. viewers.

According to Nielsen, 751,000 U.S. viewers on Nov. 27 (or 18% of the viewers for the day) watched the movie in its entirety. That’s on par with the premiere days of other major streaming films (with shorter run times) like “Bird Box” (18%) while it topped exceeded Netflix’s “El Camino” (11%). On Friday, Nov. 29, the most popular day for “The Irishman,” the film had its largest amount of viewers who watched the film in its entirety with 930,000.

Netflix has selectively touted big viewing debuts for original films and TV shows, though its self-reported figures are unverifiable.Meanwhile, there’s been a temptation to equate streaming viewership with hypothetical box-office take, but this is a spurious exercise. Most Netflix subscribers already pay for the service, which at $12.99 per month for the standard plan is well under price of two theater tickets.