'Stranger Things 2' drew more than 15 million streamers

Nielsen Holdings PLC, a global information, data, and measurement company, is reporting larege new viewership numbers for season 2 of Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” The UK-based research organisation reports daily on live and time-shifted viewership numbers for broadcast and cable series. Previously, it indicated that it would be pushing to provide more accurate ratings data for streaming shows from services including Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon that do not release viewership numbers for their programmes. Nielsen recently launched a SVoD (streaming video on-demand) measurement system. On Thursday, they reported its first official SVoD ratings estimates for “Stranger Things” and claimed a massive audience of 15.8 million viewers for the sequel’s premiere episode, within the first three days of its launch. However, all nine episodes of “Stranger Things 2” have been watched by at least 4 million viewers. Nielsen has some data, for those who binged, too. The company said: “361,000 Netflix subscribers watched all nine episodes within 24 hours of its launch on Friday.” The inability to accurately calculate the viewership of Netflix programmes has been frustrating the audience for years. Recently, the streaming service has been making it more difficult to measure success. Nielsen’s report on Thursday marks the most significant ratings data for the streaming service to date. Brian Fuhrer, senior vice president of product leadership at Nielsen, recently told the Hollywood Reporter: “Our approach is using the exact same framework and methodology that we do for all of television. “You can put these Netflix and broadcast numbers right next to one another and understand the relationship.”