Here's a lot of numbers that appear to support the statement that Bridgerton has/will be a ratings win for Netflix. The numbers come from Netflix themselves and, since those are the people cutting the checks, then theirs is the only opinion on the subject that really matters here.
As reported by Variety, the streaming behemoth projects the Shondaland series to be viewed by 63 million households within four weeks of its release. Note that that would cover Christmas Day through January 21.
If those numbers track, then Bridgerton would be Netflix's fifth largest original series launch ever (though there's an important note about that at the bottom if you keep reading). Netflix also says that the show has hit the top spot of its top 10 rankings in 76 different countries.
As described on Netflix's own website, Bridgerton is about:
The eight close-knit siblings of the Bridgerton family look for love and happiness in London high society. Inspired by Julia Quinn's bestselling novels.
Reporting info that isn't wholly surprising given: the weather, vacation time, and holidays; Netflix further claims that December was the biggest ratings month it had in 2020, and that the specific week of December 25-31 was the biggest week of the month. To come to both those conclusions, Netflix tallied up total and average "view hours" and then divided that number by its subscriber count.
As promised above, here's some context. Netflix measures who watches what based on the number of subscribers who tune in to a program for at least two minutes.
Netflix also put out viewership info for We Can Be Heroes, a new film spun off the Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl and the Spy Kids films. That very recent release came from writer/director Robert Rodriguez, and also hit the streamer on Christmas. It's projected to be watched for 2+ minutes by 44 million households, and a sequel is already in the process of being made.
For context, and more numbers, the only original TV shows to hit bigger debuts than Bridgerton are as follows: the first season of The Witcher (76 million in late 2019/early 2020), the fourth season of La Casa de Papel* [Money Heist] (65 million in April 2020), and Tiger King (64 million in March/April 2020).
In fact, the top 17 debuts are all from shows that released in either 2019 or 2020, which can be easily explained by the pandemic fact that the streamer changed the way it recorded such debuts in late 2019 by imposing the two-minute-tune-in rule over the previous (and much more difficult to obtain) standard of watching 70 percent of a program.
*Re-reads last paragraph*
That seems like a pretty significant change in gaging/juicing ratings but, whatever, the takeaway is if you toss enough Bridgerton references into your daily interactions there's a decent chance some/a lot of people will get them.
