"Wednesday" is a smash hit for Netflix, so why is the rival streamer Amazon bragging about it?
The tech and retail giant touted the series' popularity in its Q4 2022 earnings report on Thursday.
"'Wednesday,' an MGM-produced series on Netflix, debuted at No. 1 on Nielsen's weekly streaming charts and earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Musical or Comedy Series and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Series (Jenna Ortega)," the company wrote in a press release.
The Addams Family spinoff, which debuted on Netflix in November, was one of the streaming giant's biggest releases of 2022 and became its third most-watched show of all time, behind "Squid Game" and "Stranger Things" season four. It was viewed for 1.237 billion hours globally in its first 28 days of release, according to Netflix's own figures.
For the latest ranking released on Thursday, which accounted for the week of January 2 through January 8, the series was still being watched for over 1 billion minutes that week — the seventh week in a row that it cleared that number — according to Nielsen's streaming charts.
So why is Amazon bragging about it? Because Amazon owns MGM, which produced the series. It bought the film and TV studio, which is also behind the James Bond films, last year for $8.5 billion, and recently launched the MGM+ streaming platform.
Speculation swirled online last month that "Wednesday" would leave Netflix for an Amazon streaming platform after an unfounded Independent story posited as such because Netflix hadn't announced a second season yet.
Soon after, though, Netflix announced it had renewed the series for season two, exclusively for Netflix.
No matter where it's playing, that's still a win for MGM — and money for Amazon's pockets.
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
