‘Harry & Meghan‘ Logs Netflix’s Best-Ever Premiere Week for Documentaries

Netflix’s docuseries Harry & Meghan got off to a strong start, recording the best opening week for any documentary title on the streaming giant.

The first three episodes of the six-part series logged 81.55 million hours of viewing worldwide, according to Netflix’s internal measurement. That was good for second among all English-language series for the week of Dec. 5-11, behind the runaway hit Wednesday. The latter became the third series in Netflix’s history to reach a billion hours of viewing in its first four weeks, joining Squid Game and Stranger Things 4.

Harry & Meghan, which chronicles the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s relationship from their courtship through their decision to step aside as active members of the British royal family, debuted as Netflix’s No. 1 series in the United Kingdom — where a number of press outlets slammed the series — and was a top 10 show in 85 countries. Independent figures from the U.K. show the first episode had 2.4 million viewers there, the biggest single-day tally since Netflix joined U.K. ratings service Barb in October. The second episode had 1.5 million viewers and the third 800,000 on its first day.

Netflix says about 28 million member accounts worldwide watched the docuseries in its first four days, dividing the total time by the running time of just under three hours for the first three episodes. (The second half of the series debuts Dec. 15.)

As for Wednesday, it added 269.67 hours of viewing for the week to raise its total to 1.02 billion hours since its Nov. 23 premiere. It’s now in second place among all English-language Netflix series over its first four weeks of release, behind the 1.35 billion hours for Stranger Things 4. Squid Game’s 1.65 billion hours remains the high mark for all series over 28 days.