Squid Game: The Challenge appears to have launched with a splash in the UK.
The Netflix reality show’s debut episode has racked up nearly 2M viewers after five days, according to official Barb audience figures supplied by overnights.tv.
The season premiere was the most-streamed show in the UK across major video-on-demand platforms, excluding Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.
Four other episodes of Squid Game: The Challenge also scored more than 1M viewers. The show’s second installment came closest to episode one’s performance with almost 1.7M viewers.
Most-streamed shows in UK over the past five days
As first revealed by Deadline, Netflix is releasing Squid Game: The Challenge in batches of episodes. A second batch of four episodes will drop on November 29, while the finale will stream on December 6.
The UK streaming figures echo data coming out of America. In its first five days of availability, the premiere episode drew an audience of about 1.1M U.S. households, according to Samba TV.
Produced by UK companies Studio Lambert and The Garden, Squid Game: The Challenge is based on the Korean drama created by Hwang Dong-hyuk.
Two contestants told Deadline last week that the show was so faithfully recreated it was like stepping into the screen. “It definitely exceeded my expectations because the set was so realistic,” said Lorenzo Nobilio (player 161). “It was a fully immersive experience … you actually feel you’re going to die for real.”
