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Breaking Bad Far and Away Most Popular Show to Binge
Posted by Billy on Feb 10th 2016 at 2:42 pm
On February 10, 2016, the phrase “breaking bad†was entered into our search engine for the 5,000th time. Now, this number is big, but it doesn't clearly communicate just how much more popular than every other series Breaking Bad is on BingeClock. The next most searched phrase, “game of thrones,†has been entered just 3,831 times. Here's the complete top 10:
1. breaking bad - 5,000 searches
2. game of thrones - 3,811 searches
3. Naruto - 3,265 searches
4. Lost - 2,983 searches
5. One Piece - 2,967 searches
6. The Simpsons - 2,860 searches *
7. friends - 2,621 searches
8. Doctor Who - 2,341 searches
9. Supernatural - 1,960 searches
10. The Walking Dead - 1,836 searches
* just “simpsons†has been entered 1,181 times, combining with “The Simpsons†for a total of 4,041 searches. “Friends (1994)†has been entered 1,221 times, combining with “friends†for a total of 3,842 searches. There are a lot of examples like this, owing mainly to our autocomplete feature, which gives you the option to click “The Simpsons†and search for that phrase once you've only entered “simp†or even “sim.†No apparent combinations of terms, however, combine to equal a number that exceeds the 4,041 total searches for which “The Simpsons†and “simpsons†combine.
As stated previously, these search numbers don't clearly communicate the real popularity Breaking Bad commands among binge-watchers. On any given day, only between 5% and 10% of our users ever use our search engine: most users get to the show pages by some other means, such as clicking on one of the links on our home page, browsing our complete directory, and coming in through an external link.
The most common means of getting to a show page, clicking on one of the links on our home page, is of particular interest to us here, because it effectively skews the pages that are viewed most. A big portion of the links on our home page are displayed based on what's trending, i.e. the show pages that have been viewed most often over a period of time that's set dynamically by the total number of users in the last twenty-four hours. For instance, if Breaking Bad is determined by our algorithm to have the most frequently viewed show page at the moment, it will be listed in the top slot on our “Trending Shows†section, leading it to even greater exposure.
Breaking Bad, which has the most viewed show page of all time (and as we'll see soon, has also spent the most days in the number-one spot in terms of daily popularity too), is certainly a beneficiary of this system. The top 10 is as follows:
1. Breaking Bad - 55,582 views
2. The Simpsons - 42,421 views
3. Game of Thrones - 29,054 views
4. One Piece - 18,432 views
5. The Walking Dead - 17,332 views
6. Friends (1994) - 16,711 views
7. Dragon-Ball Z - 13,061 views
8. Doctor Who (2005) - 12,358 views
9. The Office (2005) - 11,756 views
10. Lost - 11,381 views
No matter how you look at this, it's a huge win for Breaking Bad: 13,161 more views than The Simpsons, which is the next most viewed show page,193% higher than the mean of the top 10, which is approximately 28,808 views, and around 4.75 times as many total views as Lost, which has the tenth most viewed show page.
Now, The Simpsons is popular, sure, but with 587 episodes and counting, binge-watching it can straddle the line between big commitment and major lifestyle choice. If our “binge-watched this†button is any indication, that commitment / choice is often too much for viewers, who pressed said button only 377 times, compared to 1,011 presses for Breaking Bad, which is the dominant number-one show by this measure as well. Simpsons, as a matter of fact, places only ninth on this top 10:
1. Breaking Bad - 1,011 presses
2. Game of Thrones - 650 presses
3. Doctor Who (2005) - 477 presses
4. The Office (2005) - 410 presses
5. Friends (1994) - 407 presses
6. One Piece - 395 presses
7. How I Met Your Mother - 390 presses
8. Supernatural (2005) - 385 presses
9. The Simpsons - 377 presses
10. Lost - 359 presses
Again, if we look at the mean (486 presses) for this top 10, Breaking Bad appears to be in a league of its own: it's 208% higher. Game of Thrones, which has the second most pressed “binge-watched this†button, falls short of even 65% of the total presses that Breaking Bad has accumulated.
Need more convincing? Consider this: the number of times that Breaking Bad has had the most viewed show page in a twenty-four hour period (from midnight to 11:59 PM).
BingeClock launched on January 7, 2015, and since then, 398 complete days have passed. Breaking Bad has had the most viewed show page on 195 of those 398 days, just under 50%. The also-rans, Simpsons, Walking Dead, and Game of Thrones, were the top show 54, 43, and 23 times respectively.
Even more interesting, however, are the shows that have won fewer days than those, as the days that those shows won can often be traced back to some special event or occasion. Take these for example:
The X-Files - 15 days (all days fall around the premiere of the revival in January 2016)
Pretty Little Liars - 3 days (all days coincide with new episodes airing)
The Twilight Zone (1959) - 3 days (all days during the New Year's Eve marathon on Syfy)
Better Call Saul - 2 days (2/8/2015, which was the date of the series premiere, and 2/7/2016, which was one week before the second-season premiere)
Back to the Future - 1 day (10/21/2015, which was Back to the Future Day)
Celebrity Deathmatch - 1 day (happened right after the reboot was announced)
Daredevil - 1 day (happened right after the series premiered on Netflix)
Grey's Anatomy - 1 day (season finale in 2015)
Still, the most telling metric of all is from September 10, 2015, a day that BingeClock was featured on the front page of r/InternetIsBeautiful.
On that day, 8,251 users viewed at least a single show page.
3,395 of those 8,251 users (41.1%) viewed the show page for Breaking Bad.
How long does it take to watch every episode of Breaking Bad?