What We Learned From Nielsen’s 2024 Streaming Awards

There's a lot of good news for Netflix here

Ted Danson in "A Man on the Inside"
Turns out a lot of people were watching "A Man on the Inside."
Netflix

What is the nation watching? When it comes to broadcast television, the answer inevitably involves a lot of football. When it comes to streaming services, though, the answer is a lot more complicated. Nielsen recently released its data on streaming service viewer habits — known from this year onward as the ARTEY Awards.

Taking a closer look at Nielsen’s numbers can tell us a few interesting things about the state of the streaming world. Though it’s also notable that streaming’s success stories don’t always look terribly different from the larger entertainment landscape.

Legacy Shows Have Legs

Nielsen’s awards and data showed plenty of streaming original success stories — including Fallout, Reacher and Bridgerton. But the overall most-watched shows were all programs that had originated elsewhere. To put it in context, Nielsen showed that Bridgerton topped the table of most-watched streaming originals with 21.42 billion minutes viewed in 2024. It’s impressive — but that number wouldn’t have cracked the overall top 10 list for streaming shows.

As for what was on that top 10, there were plenty of network or cable shows you’d expect — NCIS, Young Sheldon and Grey’s Anatomy among them. The top spot was occupied by Bluey; viewers spent 55.62 billion minutes watching the Australian animated series.

And So Does Animation

Bluey‘s impressive numbers weren’t the only good showing animation had on Nielsen’s charts. And while Spongebob Squarepants made the top 10 overall programs list as well — at number 10 — two animated shows placed higher on the chart. Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers placed third and fourth overall. On the streaming originals chart, Futurama placed sixth overall.

While these charts show animation’s growing appeal to a wide range of ages, nine of the top 10 movies on streaming services told a different story. Aside from Red One, all of the films on that chart were animated, with Moana and Super Mario Bros. atop the list.

Netflix’s Originals Have a Big Audience

Nielsen awarded ARTEYs to two new shows each in the categories of Drama, Comedy and Unscripted/Documentary. Five of those six shows were Netflix originals; the only non-Netflix show on there was Fallout, which was the most-watched new original drama series on streaming. Its runner-up there was the Netflix original Fool Me Once; in the documentary category, American Nightmare and Unlocked: A Jail Experiment were honored. (See below for more on the comedy winners.)

The two most-watched streaming originals were also Netflix productions: Bridgerton and Love Is Blind. It’s hard not to argue with The Verge’s David Pierce, who — in an article on Netflix’s latest price increases — wrote, “Netflix has gone from a solid streaming service to a practically unavoidable, virtually uncancellable part of mainstream culture.”

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It Was a Good Year for Alumni of The Good Place

According to Nielsen’s data, the two most-watched new comedy series on streaming services last year both aired on Netflix — and, serendipitously, both featured cast members from The Good Place. Viewers spent 4.9 billion minutes watching the Kristen Bell/Adam Brody romantic comedy Nobody Wants This, along with 2.94 billion minutes watching A Man on the Inside, which reunited Ted Danson with A Good Place creator Mike Schur. It begs the question: is the inevitable next move for the streaming service a workplace comedy starring Manny Jacinto?

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