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Chalk this one up to odd timing and the lag in reporting for Nielsen’s streaming ratings: A day after news broke that Netflix had canceled its series The Boroughs, the Nielsen numbers show it had a strong premiere week.
The Boroughs, executive produced by Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, had 1.2 billion minutes of viewing in the United States for the week of May 18-24 (the show premiered May 21). It finished second overall, behind another Netflix drama, Nemesis (1.31 billion minutes).
At a run time of six hours, 15 minutes, The Boroughs had about 3.2 million views (total viewing minutes divided by run time) in the U.S. for the week. That’s about 57 percent of the 5.6 million worldwide views Netflix reported for the show’s first week (though the streamer and Nielsen have different ways of collecting data).
Nemesis grew by 57 percent from its premiere week. In another odd coincidence, both Nemesis and The Boroughs come from creatives who have since moved to other media companies. Nemesis creator Courtney A. Kemp signed a deal with Apple TV in May, and the Duffer brothers moved to Paramount earlier in the year.
