Matt Rife Tops Stand-Up Specials In Latest Netflix Numbers

Netflix released over a dozen stand-up specials in the second half of last year and Matt Rife was the most-watched.

Matt Rife: Natural Selection, which was released in November, was watched for 13.5M hours. This was above specials from the likes of Shane Gillis, Tom Segura and Mike Birbiglia as well as Ricky Gervais, Trevor Noah and Dave Chappelle (although the latter three launched theirs very late in December).

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On the back of that special, Rife has been signed up for two further specials and is now developing a sitcom at the streamer.

Netflix has dominated the stand-up scene for some time now and recently launched the second iteration of its Netflix Is A Joke festival, where it had many of the biggest names in comedy across LA for two weeks.

The streamer is starting to find itself with some competition after Hulu announced it was going to compete with the rival streamer for specials. It announced a new Jim Gaffigan special at the Upfronts and has plans for many more with some big names (although it has yet to say who else it has signed up).

Tom Segura: Sledgehammer was watched for 12.2M hours from July and Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs was watched for 10.6M hours after its September launch.

Trevor Noah launched Where Was I, his first major special since leaving The Daily Show, on December 19 and it was watched for 6.3M hours in the period.

However, perhaps most impressive were the numbers for Ricky Gervais: Armageddon and Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer.

Armageddon from The Office creator was released on Christmas Day and was watched for 8.4M hours before the end of December, while Chappelle’s special was released on December 31 – the last day of the tracking period – and still managed to be watched for 2.1M hours in one day.

In the first half of 2024, Netflix has released specials from the likes of Pete Davidson, Jack Whitehall, Taylor Tomlinson, Mike Epps, Hannah Gadsby, Brian Simpson, Dave Attell, Neal Brennan, Jimmy Carr and Katt Williams. That data will likely be revealed in six months.

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