Traditional TV beats streaming in ratings as overnight viewer numbers for Netflix are revealed for the first time

Netflix might be the top streaming service but new figures reveal traditional TV attracts just as many – and often a lot more – viewers for individual shows.

Netflix is now part of the Barb audience measurement system, meaning that for the first time its overnight ratings are available along with those of other TV services.

Figures for the first day measured, November 1, were released yesterday and showed Netflix’s most watched episode that day was the fifth part of The Watcher, a thriller about a married couple being harassed by a stalker, which had 120,918 ‘views’.

By comparison the subtitled French film I Got Life! on BBC2, about a woman who ‘has her world turned upside down when a past flame returns’, got 120,000.

On Channel 4, a repeat of the comedy show Taskmasker that aired at 12.30am got 130,000.

The top rated non-news programme on Tuesday night, Emmerdale on ITV, got 4.27million, while Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off was seen by 3.97million.

Netflix sources said The Watcher launched three weeks ago, so was not a new show. Daily Mail UK