Squid Game Could Become Netflix’s Most Popular Show, Says Netflix Co-CEO

Netflix’s Korean horror thriller series Squid Game “has a very good chance” of becoming Netflix’s most popular show to date, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on Monday.

“Squid game will definitely be our biggest non-English language show in the world, for sure, “Sarandos, who is also head of content at Netflix, said Monday at the Code conference in Los Angeles. But he added that there was “Very good chance it’s going to be our greatest show ever.”

Sarandos did not specify the metric used to gauge his popularity. Traditionally, Netflix calculates the popularity of its originals by counting the number of people who watch a title for at least 2 minutes in the first 28 days of its release. Squid Game was released on September 17th, giving it only around 10 audience days so far.

Using Netflix’s standard metric, Squid Game would overtake Bridgerton – a racy Regency-era drama released in late 2020 – as Netflix’s most popular series. It would also overtake Lupine, a French heist series that is currently Netflix’s most-watched non-English-speaking series to date, and the # 2 most-watched series generally after Bridgerton.

For years, Netflix was notoriously low-key to audiences. The creator of Card castle, who put Netflix’s original content efforts on the map, once said the company won’t even share audience metrics with it. But over the past couple of years, Netflix has become much more talkative about the popularity of its shows and movies, to help recruit talent and fuel the buzz. Netflix has also added a cutting edge ranking to its service, so people can see what are the most popular titles streaming on Netflix in their country on any given day.

But Netflix’s audience statistics infuriated parts of the TV industry for being unverified, unsupported, and disclosed without much liability.

“We are trying to be more transparent with the market, with the talent, with everyone,” Sarandos said on Monday.