‘Ginny & Georgia’ Dominated Netflix In First Half Of 2023; Data Reveals High Interest In YA & Female-Led Titles

Katie Campione
·4 min read
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New insights are still being unearthed after Netflix dumped the viewership data for nearly its entire catalog from the first half of 2023, which includes more than 18,000 titles.

One of those observations is that young adult and female-centric content are doing especially well for the streamer. In fact, though The Night Agent is ranked No. 1 in terms of hours viewed, that’s really only because the data separates individual seasons of a series. Ginny & Georgia was actually the most-watched title from January to June on Netflix, with a combined 967.2M hours viewed between Seasons 1 and 2.

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Season 2 of Ginny & Georgia debuted on January 5, and it alone racked up 665.1M hours viewed (or 70.8M “views,” per Netflix’s new metric).

Season 1 tallied 302.1M (aka 30M “views”), likely reinvigorated by those catching up before watching the new episodes, as well as audiences who were introduced to the title for the first time. That’s a pretty significant amount of viewership for a season of TV that debuted two years prior.

The January release date for Ginny & Georgia Season 2 means that the series had way more time than The Night Agent to rack up those viewing hours, since that thriller series hit Netflix in March. The way Netflix is releasing this data will always favor content that debuted during the period in question, and the earlier it debuted the better it’s likely to perform.

Still, Ginny & Georgia‘s outsized performance can’t be ignored — especially because it is not alone. Plenty of content debuted on Netflix in the first half of the year, but many of the top shows illustrate a piqued interest in young adult and female-led content.

For example, Netflix’s most-watched film during this measurement period was the The Mother, the thriller led by Jennifer Lopez that launched over Mother’s Day weekend. That film amassed nearly 250M hours viewed, placing it at No. 14 among all titles.

The Bridgerton franchise, of course buoyed by Queen Charlotte, amassed a collective 773M viewing hours. Queen Charlotte debuted in May and it alone accounted for 503M of those hours, which is quite a massive feat for the six-episode series having just two months in this measurement window to rack up viewership.

The prequel series no doubt revitalized both seasons of Bridgerton, which were both in the Top 65 titles during the first half of the year, both managing over 133M hours viewed. But there’s a reason all three sit on Netflix’s most popular English-language series list.

Wednesday pierced the cultural zeitgeist when it debuted in November 2022, but it continued its dominance well into the new year with more than 500M viewing hours from January to June. It’s not exactly shocking that this YA take on the Addams Family saw success well past its debut, since it is now Netflix’s most popular series of all time in the 91-day premiere window. However, led by Jenna Ortega and a cast of mostly young adults, it does lend credence to the idea that Netflix is striking gold with these genres.

Outer Banks, Firefly Lane, You, Love Is Blind, Never Have I Ever, Emily In Paris and XO, Kitty are also among the most-watched English-language titles during this interval.

This isn’t just a domestic phenomenon, either. La Reina del Sur and the K-drama Crash Course in Romance were also among Netflix’s most-watched titles in this half of the year. Crash Course in Romance debuted in January, while all 60 episodes of La Reina del Sur became available on Netflix in May.

The female revenge K-drama The Glory launched on Netflix in late December and became the third most-watched title in the first six months of the year with 622M hours viewed.

All of this is not to say that Netflix hasn’t found success in other genres. Thrillers and action adventures are clearly also among the big hits for the streamer, signaled by the popularity of titles like The Night Agent, FUBAR and Extraction 2.

However, it’s clear why Netflix has appeared eager to give multiple seasons to young adult, female skewing stories like Ginny & Georgia, which was unsurprisingly renewed for Season 3. It also gives a glimpse into more recent decisions, like the very speedy renewal of My Life With The Walter Boys after just 10 days on the platform. There is a mighty audience for this type of content.

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