House of Cards binge viewing soars

Kevin Spacey in House of Cards

Netflix saw a huge spike in subscribers watching its drama House of Cards as its second season launched on Friday, according to broadband firm Procera Networks.

More than 16% of Netflix subs on one unspecified web service from an unspecified US cable provider watched at least one episode of the show on launch day.

In comparison, only 2% of subs on a similar sized cable provider watched an episode of the first season last year over the entire launch weekend, Procera reported, adding this was a “massive” difference and that there had been a “huge uptick”.

Furthermore, 6% of Netflix subs watched at least an episode through an unnamed broadband network, which Procera termed as “very impressive” and showed the series had “international appeal”.

Netflix doesn’t release viewing figures but Procera has found a way to extrapolate estimates by monitoring traffic on the platform.

Procera’s VP, global marketing Cam Cullen wrote in a blog post that the numbers recorded last week showed “clear signs of binge watching”.

However, no Netflix subs had watched any more than 11 episodes of the 13-part season by the close of Procera’s monitoring on the US platform.

Procera is unable to disclose details of individual clients but can share data accrued.

Netflix’s share price hit a record US$439.50 on the eve of House of Cards’ launch on Thursday, and was down slightly at US$435.51 a press time today.