2024 - The Bridgerton Chronicles: season 3 gets off to a titanic start

It is an understatement to say that the return of The Bridgerton Chronicles was expected. The popular Netflix series unveiled the first part of its season 3 on Thursday, May 16, and the public responded… and in droves.

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A big start… to qualify

The third season recorded 45.1 million views during its first 4 days of broadcast. An exceptional launch which marks – on paper – the best start of the franchise from creator Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal).

In comparison, season 2 released in 2022 had recorded 22.7 million views in 3 days, when the spin-off Queen Charlotte released last year was also around 22 million views over the same period. Finally, it must be remembered that The Bridgerton Chronicles already held the record for the best launch of a series on the platform for several months in 2021, before being dethroned by Squid Game.

This first part of season 3 also does better than the first parts of the streaming giant’s other popular series such as You season 4 (23.3 million), The Witcher season 3 (15.2 million) or even The Crown season 6 (11.1 million).

However, as a reminder, the “Netflix view” is calculated by dividing the hours viewed by the duration of the films and series concerned. An equation set up by the platform, and which allows mini-series and longer programs to be put on the same level.

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And this is precisely where the nuances need to be made. Because if it remains impressive, this launch must be put into perspective with its type of distribution. Thus, for this season 3, Netflix has opted for a release in two parts (of four episodes each), the first available on May 16 and the second on June 13.

A model which naturally condenses views, and gives a better average between the most watched episodes (start of season), and those least seen (end of season). By taking the number of hours viewed (165.2 million), we realize that it remains below that of season 2 (193 million) which was not cut into two parts.

As shown in the graph from the excellent site Netflix and Chiffres below, season 3 is certainly off to a more impressive start than the second. But the success of this new chapter of Bridgerton can only really be calculated well after the release of the second part in June, once all the episodes have been released and they will naturally modify the average of these precious “views”.

Regardless, this confirms that Netflix is sticking with The Bridgerton Chronicles a successful franchise, which should remain permanently in its top of the most popular series of all time on the service. To be continued.