Well, hello there, as Lucifer would say.
The folks at ICv2 have pulled together some interesting data from what Nielsen has kept track of this pat year with a look at the top streaming series content of 2020. They’ve broken the series information out into two different lists. The first is “original” content while the second is acquired series, usually completed or had its primary run elsewhere even if more seasons are coming.
On the original front, Lucifer was a big surprise in getting the second place spot but it’s also the one with the most content. When you have 75 episodes of material, as the FOX episodes are all on Netflix as part of the deal, that’s a lot of material to burn through if you get hooked. And Nielsen isn’t looking at the number of times you watch a show but rather how many minutes are consumed for a show. With almost 19 billion minutes, that’s a lot of the devil.
The chart for original series is pretty heavy on Netflix as you’d expect with their bigger subscriber base combined with other shows/services having fewer episodes/seasons to work with. We’re not surprised to see The Mandalorian chart, but it’s doing a lot of work with its sixteen episodes in a big way. Similar with Umbrella Academy and its two seasons.
I will say I’m super pleased to see Longmire doing as well as it is and really recommend it in hopes of getting some Netflix-produced films.
Top 10 Streaming Content of 2020 – Original Series | ||||
Rank | Program Name | SVOD Provider(s) | # of Episodes | Minutes Streamed (Nearest Million) |
1 | OZARK | Netflix | 30 | 30,462 |
2 | LUCIFER | Netflix | 75 | 18,975 |
3 | THE CROWN | Netflix | 40 | 16,275 |
4 | TIGER KING | Netflix | 8 | 15,611 |
5 | THE MANDALORIAN | Disney+ | 16 | 14,519 |
6 | THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY | Netflix | 20 | 13,470 |
7 | GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW | Netflix | 65 | 13,279 |
8 | BOSS BABY: BACK IN BUSINESS | Netflix | 49 | 12,625 |
9 | LONGMIRE | Netflix | 63 | 11,382 |
10 | YOU | Netflix | 20 | 10,965 |
When it comes to acquired series, this is where you see the numbers really go up for some of them considering the number of episodes there are. I swear my daughter must be re-watching Grey’s Anatomy continuously during the pandemic and adding to that 39 billion minute total. You can also see why Netflix wanted to hold onto The Office as long as it did and why Friends was likely a huge piece of this as well before it ended up on HBO Max earlier in 2020.
Top 10 Streaming Content of 2020 – Acquired Series | ||||
Rank | Program Name | SVOD Provider(s) | # of Episodes | Minutes Streamed (Nearest Million) |
1 | THE OFFICE | Netflix | 192 | 57,127 |
2 | GREY’S ANATOMY | Netflix | 366 | 39,405 |
3 | CRIMINAL MINDS | Netflix | 277 | 35,414 |
4 | NCIS | Netflix | 353 | 28,134 |
5 | SCHITT’S CREEK | Netflix | 70 | 23,785 |
6 | SUPERNATURAL | Netflix | 318 | 20,336 |
7 | SHAMELESS | Netflix | 122 | 18,218 |
8 | NEW GIRL | Netflix | 146 | 14,545 |
9 | THE BLACKLIST | Netflix | 152 | 14,480 |
10 | VAMPIRE DIARIES | Netflix | 171 | 14,091 |
Source: Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Hulu), Nielsen National TV Panel, U.S. Viewing through Television. U.S. Persons 2+, Total Minutes Viewed During 2020 (December 30, 2019 through December 27, 2020). Read as: Ozark had nearly 30.5 billion minutes streamed.