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“Suits” lead Nielsen’s Top 10 most streamed programs of 2023, with a total of 57.7 billion minutes viewed, according to Nielsen’s 2023 “Streaming Unwrapped” report.
The legal drama, which moved to Netflix and Peacock after originally airing on USA Network, stole the spotlight from “The Office,” which generated 57.1 billion viewing minutes in 2020 amid COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns
“Bluey” and “NCIS” made up the top three with 43.9 billion and 39.4 billion minutes viewed, respectively, while “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Cocomelon” took the fourth and fifth place spots with 38.6 billion and 36.3 billion minutes viewed.
Rounding out the top 10 was “The Big Bang Theory” (27.8 billion), “Gilmore Girls” (25.2 billion), “Friends” (25 billion), “Heartland” and “Supernatural” (22.8 billion each).
As for original programs (i.e. not licensed titles), Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” took the crown as the most-watched title with 16.9 billion minutes viewed. According to Nielsen, the show benefitted from “the buildup to the assumed final season” and a progressive lengthening of each episode from 30 minutes in Season 1 and 45 minutes in Season 2 to 60 minutes in Season 3 and 76 minutes in Season 4.
Also leading the pack was Netflix’s “The Night Agent” and “Ginny & Georgia” followed closely behind with 14.4 billion and 13.8 billion minutes viewed.
Other titles that made the list included “Virgin River” (13.7 billion), “Love Is Blind” (13.1 billion), “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” (12.8 billion), “Gabby’s Dollhouse” (12.8 billion), “The Mandalorian” (12.3 billion), “Outer Banks” (12 billion) and “The Lincoln Lawyer” (11.8 billion).
In the movie category, “Moana” topped the list with an all-time high of 11.6 billion viewing minutes after landing in the top four spots over the past four years. Since Nielsen began measuring streaming, audiences have watched nearly 80 billion minutes of “Moana,” which translates to watching the full movie 775 million times.
“Encanto” took the second place spot with just under 10 billion viewing minutes after topping the movie list in 2022 with 27.4 billion viewing minutes.
The remainder of the most streamed movies list included “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (8.8 billion), “Elemental” (8.6 billion), “Minions: The Rise of Gru” (7.1 billion), “Sing 2” (6.7 billion), “Frozen” (6.5 billion), “Black Panther: Wakanda Forver” (6.4 billion), “Avatar: The Way of Water” (6.4 billion) and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (6.3 billion).
Overall, U.S. audiences streamed 21 million years worth of video in 2023, a 21% increase from the 17 million years worth they streamed in 2022. Compared with 2022, however, the writer and actor strikes in Hollywood meant that audiences had significantly less new content to binge throughout much of 2023.
According to Gracenote, audiences had 90 different streaming services to choose from at the end of last year, up from 51 at the start of 2020, with just under 1 million unique titles. More than 80% of houses that access TV content from an internet connection watched some form of linear programming in 2023.
In the year ahead, Nielsen expects that audiences will continue to see less new content than in 2022, but emphasized audiences will never find themselves with nothing to watch given the massive library of more than 1.1 million titles across linear and streaming.
“Streaming will remain a dominant option in the U.S., especially as high-profile sporting events, like the recent NFL playoff game between Kansas City Chiefs vs. Miami Dolphins (which attracted 22.8 million live and same day viewers), become exclusive to streaming services,” Nielsen added.
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