u/Mysterious_Sun_9693

I compared Netflix’s first-week global viewership data for The Roast of Tom Brady and The Roast of Kevin Hart using publicly released Monday–Sunday Top 10 Netflix viewership data following each live premiere.

The Roast of Tom Brady and The Roast of Kevin Hart drew similar first-week Netflix audiences, with Brady pulling 13.8 million views and Hart with 13.5 million views during their first-week Netflix Top 10 tracking windows after their live premieres.

Both roasts became Netflix’s #1 English-language TV title globally the week after premiering, and Hollywood Reporter shared that Brady's Roast delivered the biggest weekly audience ever for a Netflix comedy special.

The figures are broadly comparable because both were Sunday live Netflix events measured in the Monday–Sunday Netflix Top 10 reporting period. Brady’s 13.8 million figure came from Netflix’s May 6–12, 2024 rankings, while Hart’s figure came from its May 11–17, 2026 first-week tracking period after the premiere.

I'm a bit surprised this one did as well as the Tom Brady roast! Anyways, I write about this stuff weekly in my newsletter thejokebook.org if you’re interested in this kind of stuff! 

I tracked Instagram follower growth for Funny AF’s top contestants beginning on April 4, shortly after the show launched on Netflix. Some trends: 

• Netflix exposure led to major audience growth, especially for the top 6 comics. Usama Siddiquee, for example, gained about 122K new followers.
• Compared to finalists, comics who didn’t make it past the first few rounds saw solid but less prominent follower growth. For example, Eva Evans, who was in the final ten, jumped from 82.4K to 92.5K.
• The top ten comics in Funny AF hailed from New York (5), Los Angeles (3), and Chicago (2).

Full story in my weekly comedy newsletter here.