If ever there was a case to return to the 20-plus episode season, it’s that new Nielsen data shows users streamed several billion more minutes of old, long-running television shows than they did almost anything else. 2023 was a year of (slightly) fewer shows but still plenty of options, and the options people returned to are the tried-and-true classics, according to the year’s Nielsen streaming rankings (via The Hollywood Reporter). Out with the new, in with the old is as true for film as it is for television; the top-ranked entries in both categories have been out for years.
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On the TV side, the number one acquired series on streaming is—surprise, surprise—Suits, the year’s incomprehensible breakout hit. The beloved USA legal drama, which wrapped up in 2019, broke all sorts of streaming records and topped the list with a whopping 57.7 billion minutes watched while streaming on both Netflix and Peacock. That’s even more minutes than The Office clocked in its final year on Netflix in 2020 (57.13 billion). And it’s way more than the top original series streamed this year, Ted Lasso. Ted’s 16.9 billion minutes viewed is impressive when you consider it has way fewer episodes and its platform, Apple TV+, has way fewer subscribers than its competitors (per THR). But there isn’t an original streaming show that can hold a candle to the power of the classic, lengthy broadcast show. The top 10 acquired series list also includes NCIS (39.4 billion minutes), Grey’s Anatomy (38.6 billion), The Big Bang Theory (27.8 billion), Gilmore Girls (25.2 billion), Friends (25 billion), Supernatural (22.8 billion), and more. Suits alone had several billion more minutes watched than the top three original shows (Ted Lasso, The Night Agent, and Ginny & Georgia) combined.
On the film side, the top films have also been out a while, too: Moana (11.8 billion) and Encanto (9.7 billion) take the top spots, followed by an original 2023 film, The Super Mario Bros. Movie (8.8 billion). But while Mario’s success at the box office translated to decent streaming numbers, it’s one of only two 2023 films that even managed to make the top 10 (the other being Pixar’s Elemental). The other entries (Minions: The Rise Of Gru, Frozen, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, etc.) have all been out for a year or more.
If there’s one thing this data indicates, it’s that people like to return to the familiar—and, conversely, that original streaming content doesn’t seem to have much rewatch value. It pays to invest in those basic, long-running shows, which is also indicated by the big studios licensing out their content to other streamers (in the case of Suits, Netflix, and Peacock, for example). Further, the entirety of Suits probably cost less than an entire episode of Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, but only one of those series is smashing streaming records more than a decade after it premiered. People want content they can spend time with and sink their teeth into, and the numbers prove that again and again. The question is, will the streaming services adjust to this reality?