With only six hours of exclusivity before it hit YouTube, Netflix’s “Grand Theft Auto 6” extended look became the streamer’s most-viewed title last week.
Between its release on Thursday, Aug. 27 at 3 p.m. ET and Sunday, Aug. 30 (the end of Netflix’s viewing window for its weekly Top 10 rankings) the 27-minute “GTAVI” special drew 31.1 million views.
The extended look at the highly anticipated Rockstar Games title, which marks an entirely new category of entertainment for Netflix, was classified under the English-language film list for the week. It was No. 1 on that list in 87 of 93 countries that Netflix tracks globally.
For comparison, “Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look” views have topped 17 million on YouTube just on the Rockstar Games account only, as of the time of publication Tuesday. The video was posted to YouTube by Rockstar Games at 9 p.m. ET last Thursday, following its exclusive debut earlier that day on Netflix.
It should be noted here that YouTube and Netflix count views very differently. Netflix defines a view as the total hours viewed for a title divided by its runtime, meaning one household watching a program twice would be counted only once. On YouTube, a view is counted as soon as any video (whether its a short, a repeat viewing or partial plays) starts to play.
