Orange is the New Black ratings revealed by Nielsen

After years of speculation, we finally have some solid numbers on just how well streaming shows do on services such as Netflix and Hulu.

Speaking at the Consumer 360 conference this week in Las Vegas, Nielsen revealed ratings for some of the most popular shows on streaming services. The ratings company has been monitoring Netflix for some time now, but the data has only been shared with the companies that requested the monitoring. Now Lionsgate (Orange is the New Black) and Sony Pictures Television (Seinfeld and Better Call Saul) have given permission for some of that information to be shared.

Orange is the New Black season 4 premiered on June 17, and by June 19 it was estimated that 6.7 million people had viewed the season premiere, placing the Netflix original series securely in the range of high-ranking cable shows. To give you some perspective, the season finale of Game of Thrones drew in 10.4 million and the season premiere of Major Crimes on TNT enjoyed 5.8 million.

Better Call Saul, which has already aired on AMC saw its viewership shift somewhat. While airing on the cable network only 24 percent of its audience was between the ages of 18 and 34, a key demographic for advertisers. However, once season one landed on Netflix that percentage nearly doubled reaching 44 percent.

Hulu was in a bidding war for the back catalog of Seinfeld episodes and it seems to have paid off with an average of 706,000 people checking out episodes within five days of them premiering on the service.

It is unknown how often information such as this will be shared in the future, but it’s nice to finally get some perspective on how all of these shows fare. It may also finally give us some insight into how the streaming services choose which shows to keep and toss out when their contracts come up for renewal.

Now, get out there and binge your favorite show as you may help save it.