‘Baby Reindeer’ Cements Sleeper Hit Status After UK Audience Surges In Second Week On Netflix

Baby Reindeer has burnished its status as a surprise Netflix hit by piling on viewers in its second week on the streaming service.

Episode 1 of Richard Gadd’s lightly fictionalized stalker story was watched by 3M viewers over the past seven days, according to official Barb figures supplied by overnights.tv.

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This was a 64% increase on the show’s audience of 1.7M viewers in its first week on Netflix. The episode now has 4.7M viewers in total. A similar pattern could be seen across the rest of the series, which premiered on April 11.

Baby Reindeer has dominated online viewing in the UK over the past week, with all seven episodes topping the list of most-watched shows and films.

The 10 most-streamed shows in the UK in week to April 24
The 10 most-streamed shows in the UK in week to April 24

Baby Reindeer‘s performance in the UK is supported by viewing figures published by Netflix. The series topped Netflix’s English-language TV chart with 13.3M views in the week to April 21. It had 2.6M views in its first few days on the streamer.

The success has not come without unwanted consequences, however. Both Gadd and co-star Jessica Gunning have pleaded with fans to stop trying to identify characters in the true story after social media has been flooded with false allegations.

Gunning said the online Baby Reindeer speculation is “quite sad” and “not the point of the show at all.” She told BBC Scotland’s The Edit: “If you like the show and you are a fan of it, you should stick with the story of Martha and Donny being what connects you, not trying to do any detective work and find out any real identities.”

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