Just as “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” rocked the summer box office, TV found two massive events to warm up its slower months in the FIFA World Cup and, of course, “Love Island USA.”
The international soccer tournament couldn’t be more different than the reality dating show featuring bikini-clad contestants finding love in Fiji, but there’s one key theme tying the juggernauts: They both encouraged and created an environmental of communal viewing that skyrocketed their ratings to historic levels.
Just take “Love Island USA,” which saw co-viewing with at least one other person make up nearly half of its record-breaking Season 8 audience, which totaled 19 billion minutes viewed to stand as Peacock’s most-watched original season ever, according to Nielsen figures.
And while co-viewing is nothing new for sports — especially a major sports event that only comes around every four years — this year’s tournament moved soccer into the upper echelon of sports in the U.S. as it became the most-watched FIFA World Cup in U.S. history as well as Spanish-language media history.
The success for both summer events speaks to the desire for community, whether that means watching with friends and family or engaging with other fans online or at the office the next day. In a sea of endless TV options watching something that others are engaging with guarantees value in the time invested, and it’s also likely the shared experience boosts your enjoyment of the program itself.
And that communal viewing doesn’t necessarily have to be IRL; both events found a lively social media audience, with “Love Island USA” Season 8 generating over 5 billion video views across social channels, ranking as the No. 1 most social series program since its launch.
Likewise, the World Cup generated 2.25 billion video views across social platforms, more than nine times the combined total generated during the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.
While “Love Island U.S.A.” took on the challenge of maintaining and growing the show’s already massive audience after it broke into the cultural zeitgeist in Season 6, the World Cup managed to break through in a way it hasn’t before. It’s hard to say exactly what facilitated the shift, as it’s likely a mix between increased accessibility both across platforms as Fox and Telemundo/Peacock shared broadcasting duties, as well as timing, with the U.S., Mexico and Canada serving as host countries.
Additionally, flashy, star-studded performances that resembled the likes of a Super Bowl halftime show boosted the final match between Spain and Argentina to reach a combined viewership of 62.8 million across Fox, Telemundo and Peacock. That’s more than double the viewership reached by Game 5 of this year’s NBA finals, which scored 24.5 million viewers, but is exactly half of the 125.6 million viewers that tuned in for the 2026 Super Bowl.
Credit goes to the World Cup organizers for making the halftime show — which included the likes of Madonna, Shakira, Justin Bieber and BTS — into a Super Bowl-level performance, again turning the final match into a must-watch cultural event that would end up on your feed, whether you watched it or not. In the same way, Peacock has turned “Love Island USA” into must-see TV that airs nearly every day for six weeks.
It’s another win in the books for NBCUniversal, which wrapped up its Legendary February to ratings success earlier this year. And other companies are benefiting from this rise in communal viewing interest as well. “Big Brother” has aired multiple episodes a week every summer for 28 seasons and counting. This year saw its ratings rise for its Season 28 premiere in July, with the launch averaging 3.9 million viewers, a 22% increase from last year to capture the show’s most-watched premiere since July 7, 2021, which averaged 4.3 million viewers.
Hulu is also hoping to get in on the gains as it refurbishes “The Circle,” a social competition that ran for seven seasons at Netflix. In this iteration, the show will be filmed in real time and introduce audience voting, giving viewers the ability to shape the game as it unfolds.
NBC’s MLB coverage hits a home run
NBC Sports had a winning baseball Sunday, marking the first time in “Sunday Night Baseball” history that three consecutive games have topped 3 million viewers.
Those victories were made up of the Boston Red Sox-Los Angeles Dodgers game, which scored 3.8 million viewers on Sunday, as well as the Dodgers-Yankees game on July 19 that tallied 3.9 million viewers and the Yankees-Phillies matchup on July 26 that drew in 3.2 million viewers.
“Stranger Things” tops all streaming shows
Residual viewing for the “Stranger Things” series finale on New Year’s Eve boosted the Netflix series to become the most-watched streaming series for the first half of 2026 with 23.26 billion minutes, according to Nielsen data.
Behind “Stranger Things” was kids favorite “Bluey,” which tallied 22.81 billion minutes from January to June. HBO Max’s “The Pitt” was close behind with 21.12 billion minutes. Also in the top 10 were “Bridgerton,” alongside library favorites “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Spongebob Squarepants,” “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers” and “Paw Patrol.”
Ben Affleck boosts “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”
Ben Affleck and Jamie Ding’s $1 million win on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” boosted the ABC competition show to its best performance in a year since Matt Damon and Ken Jennings won the $1 million prize last summer. The episode scored 4.2 million viewers — up 4% from the prior week — and became the top program of the night for the second week in a row among total viewers.
ICYMI:
- “The Devil Wears Prada 2” sashayed to 15.2 million global viewers in five days across Disney+ and Hulu
- Netflix found its next docuseries obsession in “The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare,” which tallied 18.2 million views in its first week
- “The Five Star Weekend” cracked 2.1 billion minutes watched as Peacock’s No. 1 scripted series of all time, landing a Season 2 renewal from the streamer
