Season 3 of 'Fauda' viewed a million times in 48 hours

The episode received 12.6% of the broadcast viewership on Thursday, breaking records for previous seasons.

By HANNAH BROWN
A promotional image for Fauda. (photo credit: OHAD ROMANO/COURTESY OF YES)
A promotional image for Fauda.
(photo credit: OHAD ROMANO/COURTESY OF YES)
The first episode of the third season of Fauda, the world-famous series about an Israeli counter-terrorism unit and its Palestinian adversaries, set records for viewership in Israel when it premiered on Thursday night. Including those who watched it when it aired on the YES Action Channel, on YES VOD and on YES’s YouTube channel in the next 48 hours, Fauda’s newest episode got a million views. 
The episode received 12.6% of the broadcast viewership on Thursday, breaking records for previous seasons.
What’s most remarkable about the one million-view figure is that this is for broadcasts of the series in Hebrew and Arabic, with Hebrew subtitles. Viewers who don’t speak Hebrew will have to wait until Netflix releases the third season in 2020 with the appropriate subtitles. 
Fauda became a huge hit around the world when it was picked up by Netflix and shown with subtitles in multiple languages.
The new season of the show, which was created by Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff and stars Raz, centers on Raz’s character, Doron Kavillio. Counter-terrorism operative Kavillio suffered two tragic losses in the previous season and, as the third season opens, he is operating a boxing gym on the West Bank, undercover. The slow-burn season-three opener seems to be laying the groundwork for the reported shift to Gaza and it ends on cliffhanger, as most episodes of the series do.
The show received rave reviews around the world and just last week was named in the eighth spot in The New York Times’ list of the best television shows of the decade (another Israeli series, Prisoners of War from Keshet, which became the basis for Homeland, occupied the top spot on this list). Bestselling author Stephen King praised Fauda as, “All thriller, no filler.” 
Raz and Issacharoff became unlikely stars, making public appearances all over the world and being interviewed by The New Yorker editor, David Remnick. Celebrities visiting Israel, among them Conan O’Brien, made pilgrimages to the Fauda set. Raz recently appeared in the Netflix movie, 6 Underground, directed by Michael Bay and starring Ryan Reynolds.
The show has reportedly become a guilty pleasure among Israeli and West Bank Arabs, some of whom appreciate the many complex Palestinian characters on the show.
The series is currently being remade in India.
Fauda is shown on Thursdays on YES Action at 10 p.m.
Meanwhile, Netflix Israel just released its data on the top 10 shows of the year and Fauda is not on that list, probably because most Israelis have seen the original on Yes and YouTube.
The top-rated show in Israel was the third season of the suspenseful bank robbery series from Spain, Money Heist. But Israel-related content made it to the second and 10th places on the list. The Spy, the fact-based miniseries starring Sacha Baron Cohen about Israeli spy Eli Cohen was in second place and the movie, The Red Sea Diving Resort, the true story of how Israeli agents pretended to run a diving school to rescue Ethiopian Jews, was in 10th place. Both the series and the movie were created by Gideon Raff, who also made Prisoners of War.
   
   


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