Is Fuller House Really the Most Popular Show on TV?

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Streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu are famously opaque about how many consumers actually view their original series, and for good reason: because they can be. Nielsen measures the viewership of traditional television channels and pay cable networks like HBO; it doesn’t monitor the big-three streaming platforms, which means that they have no obligation to reveal the number of eyeballs actually soaking in Flaked or The Path. Instead, streaming outlets are free to rack up publicity, social-media buzz, and awards without telling the world how their numbers compare to those of regular TV—a powerful way to keep their reputations strong and the reasoning behind their programming decisions to themselves.

Then again, there are cases in which Netflix et al. may find themselves wishing they could brag about their ratings instead of concealing them. To wit: Fuller House is apparently among the most watched TV programs anywhere, on streaming or traditional TV . . . at least, according to data gathered by Symphony Advanced Media, a tech firm that believes it’s cracked the code to measuring Netflix’s viewership.

Symphony—which first made headlines by allegedly unveiling Netflix’s viewership numbers earlier this year—recently released data that indicates Netflix’s Full House sequel drew a staggering 14.4 million viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 within 35 days of its February 26 premiere date. That’s a massive number, one that translates to a 10.4 rating—which, as IndieWire points out, would make Fuller House an even bigger hit than The Walking Dead, 2015 through 2016’s most watched series among the 18-to-49 demographic. The AMC zombie drama’s sixth season drew a 9.6 rating overall.

Perhaps even more surprising: according to Symphony, the second-best-rated series on Netflix last season wasn’t House of Cards or Daredevil—it was December's Making a Murderer, which allegedly got 13.4 million viewers aged 18 to 49 in its first 35 days of streaming. The firm’s measurements indicate that the Serial-esque docuseries was the very definition of a slow burn, a show that flew under the radar for a week before blowing up once viewers discovered it over the holidays.

It goes without saying that this information should be taken with a shaker of salt. To begin, Netflix’s release model bears little resemblance to that of a network like AMC, making these sorts of ratings comparisons unfair; while every episode of Fuller House and Making a Murderer hit screens on the same day, the latest seasons of shows such as The Walking Dead aired over the course of several months. As such, Symphony’s “live + 35” ratings data would be a useless metric for measuring traditional TV shows; on regular television, Nielsen instead measures ratings for individual episodes, as well as how many viewers an episode gets three and seven days after its initial airing.

More important, Netflix has disavowed Symphony’s methods. The platform had no comment when Vanity Fair reached out about Symphony’s latest findings—but after NBC presented the tech firm’s first batch of supposed ratings at January’s Television Critics Association press tour, Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, blasted Symphony, calling its data “really remarkably inaccurate” and quipping, “I hope they [NBC] didn’t spend any money on it.” According to Sarandos, his streaming platform doesn’t even track users aged 18 to 49: “There is not an apples-to-apples comparison to Netflix watching and any Nielsen rating.”

And even if there were, Netflix says that its strategy doesn’t rest on creating nothing but big, populist hits—encouraging though Fuller House’s performance may be. “We may build a show for 2 million people, and we may build a show for 30 million,” Sarandos explained in January—indicating that there’s room online for programs with both wide and tiny appeal. Good news for the shows that aren’t doing Making a Murderer numbers—even if we never know which shows those are.