Bridgerton season 3 part 1 has broken its own streaming record. Debuted on Netflix in 2020, each season of the popular period drama follows a different member of the eponymous family as they find love in Regency-era London, based on the books by Julia Quinn. Bridgerton season 3 part 1, which was released on May 16, follows the friendship-turned-romance between Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), which has received some of the show’s best reviews to date.
Now, shortly after its release, Bridgerton season 3 part 1 has broken its own streaming record. Per Netflix, the first part of season 3 debuted to 165.2 million hours viewed and 45.1 million individual views globally from May 16-19. This breaks the show’s record for its biggest opening weekend to date, per THR.
Bridgerton Season 3 Part 1’s Record-Breaking Viewership Explained
Bridgerton season 3 part 1 broke the show’s record for its biggest opening weekend previously set by season 2. In comparison, Bridgerton season 2 premiered in March 2022 and garnered over 193 million viewing hours worldwide. However, that was for a full season, with a runtime more than double that of the first part of season 3. Bridgerton season 2’s 8 episodes have a runtime of 510 minutes, compared to the shorter runtime, 220 minutes, for the first four episodes of season 3. Considering this, season 2’s opening weekend individual view count was approximately 22.7 million.
Netflix’s subscriber base has also grown by about 50 million worldwide since March 2022, which is another factor that contributed to Bridgerton breaking the record for its biggest opening weekend. Additionally, season 3 had an extended four-day opening weekend compared to three days for season 2, though the extra day only contributed slightly to season 3’s increased viewership. Netflix did not release weekly viewing figures for Bridgerton season 1.
In addition to breaking its own record, Bridgerton also achieved the highest single-week view count for a Netflix series since the platform began releasing information in June 2023. Since then, it holds the second spot among all titles, trailing only the Millie Bobby Brown movie Damsel, which opened to 50.8 million views in mid-March. The first two seasons of Bridgerton rank among Netflix’s Top 10 most-watched English-language series, based on views within their first 91 days of release. Following its record-breaking opening weekend with four more episodes to go, Bridgerton season 3 has a strong chance of joining them.
