Netflix and Disney+ stake new viewing records claims with Stranger Things and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

by Thinus Ferreira

In an upside-down world, Stranger Things and Obi-Wan Kenobi now hold the new records for streaming television's new most-watched shows ever.

Both Netflix and Disney+ claimed new video streaming watching records for new releases: Netflix for the first half of the fourth and final season of Stranger Things, and Disney+ for its just-released live-action miniseries set in that galaxy far, far away further filling in the story of the Jedi knight turned hermit Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Netflix announced that the first episodes from the fourth season of Stranger Things led to 286.79 million hours viewed worldwide over the past weekend, surpassing the previous Netflix record-holder - the second season of period-drama Bridgerton which logged 193 million hours viewed in March over its opening weekend this year.

This makes the Stranger Things season 4 debut Netflix's new most-watched show ever for the debut of an English-language TV show (Korea's Squid Game is the all-time leader for a Netflix series in any language). 

According to Netflix, the new Stranger Things season was the first to reach number one in 83 countries, and also reached top 10 positions in all 93 countries that Netflix tracks.

Meanwhile, Disney on social media tweeted that the force has been strong with its Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries with Ewan McGregor reprising the titular role.

"Thank you to the best fans in the galaxy for making Obi-Wan Kenobi the most-watched Disney+ Original series premiere globally to date, based on hours streamed in an opening weekend," Disney said. Disney didn't release any specific internal viewership details.

Stranger Things will release the fourth season's final two episodes on Friday 1 July and Obi-Wan Kenobi is releasing episodes 3 to 6 with one episode a week on Fridays.

Netflix to stomp out the ciggies in its TV shows following complaints.

Netflix will cut down on showing characters smoking in series following complaints and has agreed to limit showing tobacco use in especially younger-skewing programmes, except for "reasons of historical or factual accuracy".

Putting cigarettes back in puffing characters' hands was one of the things the global video streaming did to show how it's programming is edgy and how its service is different from traditional broadcast television and not tied to conventional rules and regulations around television.

Where Netflix went, other subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services immediately followed with their content.

MultiChoice's Showmax put cigarettes in the hands of Nina Milner as the chronic smoker and drama teacher Kate Ballard as well as other adults and school children in its first locally-produced drama series The Girl from St Agnes done by Quizzical Pictures.

It marked smoking's first local TV return years after traditional South African television banished the practice.

Meanwhile Netflix programming sold through international distributors to other channels "exported" smoking back onto South African screens, for instance 233 tobacco depictions in the 6th season of Orange is the New Black seen on M-Net (Dstv 101) and 54 tobacco depictions in the 6th season of House of Cards that was also on M-Net and with the series that has also now been acquired by SABC3.

Netflix will now cut down on showing smoking, especially in TV shows for viewers younger than 14 and films rated PG13 and below.

It comes after the anti-smoking group Truth Initiative in America released a scathing report, noting that depictions of tobacco in the most popular American TV shows under younger viewers have increased nearly 400% over the past year with the second season of Netflix's Stranger Things that just released its third season this week, being the worst offender.

According to the Truth Initiative, the second season of Stranger Things contained 262 instances of tobacco use, an increase of 44% over the first season, while other Netflix shows aimed at viewers in the 15 to 24 age demographic also featured significant spikes in tobacco depictions across recent seasons, including actual smoking and the appearance of tobacco products.

Robin Koval, Truth initiative president in a statement said "Content has become the new tobacco commercial. We're seeing a pervasive reemergence of smoking imagery across screens that is glamorising and re-normalizing a deadly addiction and putting young people squarely in the crosshairs of the tobacco industry".

Netflix in a statement said that going forward, new shows, including ones with higher age restrictions will not depict smoking or e-cigarette use "unless it’s essential to the creative vision of the artist or because it’s character-defining (historically or culturally important)".

"Netflix strongly supports artistic expression. We also recognise that smoking is harmful and when portrayed positively on screen can adversely influence young people."

It's 1985 ... and almost feeding time: Netflix drops the first, full-length teaser trailer for the 3rd season of Stranger Things.

It's 1985 and Netflix just dropped the first full-length teaser trailer for the upcoming third season of its teen horror-thriller series Stranger Things, promising a new monster, new characters and a return to the evil of the Upside Down.

In classic mid-eighties movie style, Stranger Things' tagline reads: "One summer can change everything" for the latest season that will debut globally on 4 July - America's Independence Day. Along with scurrying rats, it then suddenly gets ominously scarier: "It's almost feeding time."

Besides the almost 3-minute long teaser trailer with The Who song "Baba O'Riley", Netflix also released 7 episodic publicity images of the ongoing scary adventures of the kids in the small town of Hawkins.

This time Starcourt Mall will feature prominently as the latest (scary) setting and contains several thematic American pop culture touchstones ranging from The Terminator to Mallrats.

Besides romance, celebrations, and rats, echoeing the series finale of The Wonder Years, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) says "We're not kids anymore. I mean, what did you think? We were just going to sit in my basement all day? Play games for the rest of our lives?"

The second season of Stranger Things ended with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Will (Noah Scnapp) and the rest of the group managing to escape from The Upside Down and the vicious Demogorgons and Mind-Flayers.

Along with them Joyce (Winona Ryder), Chief Hopper (David Harbour), Nancy (Natalia Dryer), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Max (Sadie Sink), Billy (Dacre Montgomery) and Steve (Joe Keery) will all return.

Cary Elwes as the mayor and Jake Busey as a local reporter for The Hawkins Post will appear in new roles, alongside Maya Hawke who works in the Starcourt Mall's ice cream shop.

The new live-action Star Wars TV drama series will be more expensive than Game of Thrones.

The upcoming new live-action Star Wars TV drama series will reportedly be more expensive than Game of Thrones - itself one of the most expensive TV productions ever in television's new so-called Gilded Age filled with more ultra-premium, high-cost series than what anyone can ever hope to all watch.

In television's new arms race to make and roll out expensive and prestige-filled series as existing broadcasters try to retain their relevance and ratings, while streaming video services likewise ramp up and splash the cash on lavish shows, Disney is the latest to make it rain mega-bucks to create a must-watch drama.

Hidden inside a lengthy new business article in The New York Times about The Walt Disney Company's as yet unnamed and to be launched Disney subscription video-on-demand service (SVOD), is an eye-watering statistic: that Disney plans to spend $10 million (R134.2 million) per episode - per episode! - on making the new Star Wars drama series.

The New York Times article also reveals that the as yet unnamed Star Wars series will have a first season of 10 episodes. It means that the production budget for the series will be over R100 million.

HBO, producer of the fantasy drama series, Game of Thrones, seen in South Africa and across the rest of Africa on M-Net (DStv 101), in September 2017 revealed that the 7th season of Game of Thrones cost $10 million per episode but that the upcoming final 8th season would cost $15 million per episode, making the last season of Game of Thrones TV's most expensive per-episode show yet.

However, because earlier seasons cost less and had more episodes and because Game of Thrones' last season will only have 6 episodes - and with Star Wars start off with $10 million and also foreseeably running into multiple season in the future - it's clear that Star Wars will actually surpass Game of Thrones as television's most expensive show. For now.

Other shows are however nipping at the heels when it comes to TV-making sticker shock.

Netflix's royalty-laden The Crown available on Netflix South Africa also cost $10 million per episode (Buckingham Palace is a big place with multiple drafty rooms to meticulously recreate inside a soundstage).

And there are other "scary things": The first season of the supernatural drama series Stranger Things also available on Netflix South Africa cost $6 million per episode, and increased to $8 million for the second season.

Star Trek: Discovery made by CBS Television Studios and available outside America on Netflix like Netflix South Africa, had a price tag of $8.5 million for its first season and a total production budget of more than $120 million.

Now take a deep breath because the upcoming Star Wars series with its "most expensive" label that hasn't even landed yet, will be eclipsed by another "most most expensive" show that will make it debut sometime in late-2019.

This one is even further off into production development. Amazon Studios' Lord of the Rings TV series that will unspool on its Amazon Prime Video streaming service, and rumoured to start around 2021, will come in at a cost of $1 billion for at least 5 seasons.

'Oh, Barb!' Hit Netflix series Stranger Things renewed for a bigger second season; scare mystery tale will continue a year later in 1984.

"Oh, Barb!" The hit Netflix series, Stranger Things, has been renewed for a slightly bigger second season that will become available on the global video streaming service in 2017.

Netflix made the second season renewal announcement in a YouTube teaser trailer video.
South Africans, along with viewers elsewhere in the world, have been binge-watching the frightfully excellent series set in the 80s, with Stranger Things that's filled with multiple touchstones to the thrills and scares of that era's scary movies, infused with the horror and wonder pop culture style from meisters Steven Spielberg and Stephen King.

Viewers love the scare-story of a group of boys in the town of Hawkins who find a strange telekinetic girl after one of their friends mysteriously disappears, as they set off on a The Goonies type mystery adventure that also has Wynona Ryder making her pop culture comeback with a Christmas lights set piece that must be seen to be believed.

Meanwhile actress Shannon Purser who plays nerdy girl school girl Barb has just been cast as as Ethel in the upcoming new TV series Riverdale, based on the Archie comics.

The second season of 9 episodes for Stranger Things will have one more episode than the first season of Netflix's breakout hit, and will retain the Duffer Brothers as writers as well as Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen as the executive producers.

The second season of Stranger Things is set to continue in 1984, one year after the time period of the first season.