The Season 2 debut of “Squid Game” boosted the Netflix series to reach the biggest weekly streaming audience any show has seen in 2024, according to Nielsen’s streaming charts.

With the second installment debuting Dec. 26 on Netflix, “Squid Game” drew 4.92 billion minutes over its two seasons in the interval between Dec. 23 to Dec. 29. Viewership for “Squid Game” was more than double that of Netflix’s “Virgin River,” which scored a whopping 2.25 billion viewing minutes as the second most-watched streaming program of the week.

Dwayne Johnson-led “Red One” also scored an impressive streaming viewership as the holiday movie scored 1.81 billion viewing minutes on Prime Video during the week, clocking in as the third most-watched program of the week. Next up was holiday thriller “Carry-On,” which scored 1.54 billion viewing minutes on Netflix, and “The Six Triple Eight,” which drew a streaming viewership of 1.33 billion minutes on Netflix.

Beloved kids show “Bluey” took the sixth spot on the list with 1.17 billion viewing minutes, outpacing “Landman,” which scored 1.08 billion viewing minutes on Paramount+, as well as “The Equalizer,” which drew 1.05 cumulative billion minutes across Paramount+ and Netflix.

The holidays also boosted Christmas classics “Home Alone” and “Elf” into the ninth and tenth spots on the overall most-watched list with 917 and 848 million viewing minutes, respectively.

On the top 10 most-watched streaming originals list, Netflix series “Black Doves,” “No Good Deed” and “La Palma” all made an appearance, with “Black Doves” clocking in fourth place behind “Squid Game,” “Virgin River” and “Landman” with 448 million streaming minutes. “No Good Dead” and “La Palma” scored 446 and 435 million minutes, respectively, during the interval.

Prime Video’s “Beast Games” also notched its way into the top 10 streaming originals in the No. 7 spot with 406 million minutes, outpacing stand-up comedy special “Your Friend, Nate Bergatze,” which took eighth place with 394 million minutes on Netflix.

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Monday’s college national championship game between Ohio State and Notre Dame brought in an impressive audience.

The matchup, which saw the Buckeyes take victory over the Fighting Irish, scored 22.1 million viewers on Monday night, according to Nielsen viewing figures. The game peaked with 26.1 million viewers from 8:30-8:45 p.m. ET.

The game currently ranks as the most-watched non-NFL sporting event over the past year, and drew the biggest audience of the inaugural 12-team college football playoffs.

The Ohio State-Notre Dame game followed up on the 2025 inauguration of Donald Trump, which brought in an average total viewership of 24.59 million from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET across 15 networks, including in the viewership include ABC, CBS, NBC, Merit Street Media, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, CNNe, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation and PBS.

Monday night’s game saw a slightly bigger audience Rose Bowl game between Oregon and Ohio State, which scored 21.1 million viewers. By comparison the delayed Sugar Bowl between Notre Dame and Georgia drew a viewership of 15.8 million.

On Saturday, the game between the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs became ESPN’s most-watched NFL game ever with an average viewership of 32.7 million. The matchup scored the biggest Saturday afternoon kickoff audience in ten seasons since 2016, including all 4:30 p.m. ET kickoffs across all networks.

The Ohio State-Notre Dame saw Ohio State win their 9th national title, defeating Notre Dame 34-23. The game took place in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

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The new method for analyzing TV ratings combines the firm’s panel measurement — which tracks a specific group or market’s viewing habits — with data from cable, satellite set-top boxes and smart TVs across 45 million households and 75 million devices, giving advertisers access to cross-platform audiences at scale. It also will help inform content programming and licensing decisions, along with carriage fees for TV distribution deals.

The offering was first introduced to advertisers and the company’s broadcasting and streaming clients prior to last year’s upfront. Amazon has notably used Nielsen’s big data panel measurement tools for its “Thursday Night Football” ratings.

“The accreditation of Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel is a landmark moment for TV ratings, as it will forever change audience measurement,” Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said in a Wednesday statement. “I believe Big Data + Panel gives the industry the most accurate measurement in the history of TV. We’re grateful to our clients for helping us innovate once again.” 

Nielsen has dominated media measurement for the better part of a century, with advertisers depending on its Streaming Top 10 and Gauge reports in order to help determine their spending on commercials as audiences shift from linear TV to streaming.

But TV networks have complained that the firm is not measuring audiences as well as it should amid this transition. In 2021, the MRC found that the firm undercounted viewers during the COVID-19 pandemic, which temporarily resulted in a suspension of their accreditation.

Paramount Global, which is in the midst of a contract dispute with Nielsen, has switched advertisers’ campaigns to VideoAmp as the two sides continue to negotiate. They’ve suggested that they’re also prepared to make that switch permanent if the two parties are unable to reach a deal.

VideoAmp, which is not accredited by the MRC, is certified by the Joint Industry Committee, which represents advertisers, agencies and media owners. Other ratings measurement competitors include Comscore and iSpot.tv, which have both received accreditations from the MRC.

The MRC’s Wednesday endorsement comes ahead of the 2025 upfront season and after it recently signed off on Nielsen’s integration for first-party live streaming data and renewed the accreditation for its traditional panel measurement.

“We appreciate Nielsen’s inclusion of this in the MRC accreditation process,” MRC CEO and executive director George Ivie added. “This effort marks the first time MRC has accredited a hybrid panel/big-data product inclusive of persons level estimates.”

In addition to the launch of its Big Data + Panel measurement, Nielsen is expanding its national TV out-of-home measurement, which is also being submitted to MRC for evaluation and is in process. It also plans to submit its expanded version of Nielsen ONE, which will include outcome capabilities in addition to advanced audience, planning and measurement tools, for MRC auditing and evaluation at a future date.

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Trump’s second swearing-in brought in an average total viewership of 24.59 million viewers across 15 networks from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET, according to early viewing figures from Nielsen. Networks which aired the inauguration and are included in the viewership include ABC, CBS, NBC, Merit Street Media, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, CNNe, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation and PBS.

Viewership for the 2025 inauguration was down 27% from Biden’s 2021 inauguration, which scored an audience of 33.76 million viewers across 17 channels. The 2025 inauguration reverses the viewership growth the event had seen in 2021, which saw a 10.18% increase from the 30.64 million viewers brought in by the 2017 inauguration.

The 2025 inauguration also saw a 19.75% viewership downtick from Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, which scored 30.64 million viewers across 12 networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, Univision, Telemundo, CNBC, Fox Business Network, Galavision and HLN.

The audience for the 2025 inauguration included 1.43 million viewers ages 18-34, 4.67 million viewers ages 35-54 and 17.4 million viewers ages 55+. For comparison, the 2021 inauguration captured 2.85 million viewers ages 18-34, 8.21 million viewers ages 35-54 and 21 million viewers ages 55+.

As expected, Fox News’ coverage of the inauguration dominated amongst its counterparts, with Fox News averaging 10.3 million viewers from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET on Monday, while CNN averaged 1.7 million viewers and MSNBC reached 848,000 viewers during the same time period. Likewise, ABC averaged 4.7 million viewers during the same time period while CBS scored 4.1 million viewers and NBC reached 4.4 million viewers.

Despite a viewership decline on linear channels, inauguration-related content on YouTube drew in over 30 million people on Monday, according to the platform’s data. Of the livestreams with the highest number of peak concurrent U.S. viewers on Monday, Fox News accounted for three of the top five.

During the inauguration, which was attended by politicians and billionaires alike, Trump outlined a slew of executive orders he intended to sign on his first day of the presidency, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border with Mexico, ending the Green New Deal to “drill, baby, drill” and eradicate “government censorship.”

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“Back in Action” scored the biggest Netflix weekend debut an English language movie has seen since 2022.

The Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz-led action movie brought in 46.8 million views on Netflix during its opening weekend, marking the most views in a premiere weekend for an English-language movie since 2022’s “The Adam Project.”

“Back in Action,” which reached No. 1 in 85 countries, was the most-watched English language movie for the week of Jan. 13, outpacing viewership for “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” which took the No. 2 spot with 8.9 million views, and “The Secret Life of Pets,” which was third on the list with 5.2 million views. “Knight and Day” took fourth place with 5.2 million views, holiday thriller “Carry-On” took fifth place with 3.6 million views and “Despicable Me 3” took sixth place with 3.4 million views.

On the TV side, “American Primeval” jumped to become the No. 1 most-watched English series of the week with 14.3 views, growing from its debut viewership of 10.4 million during the week of Jan. 6, when the limited series came in second place on the list behind Harlan Coben’s “Missing You.”

“American Primeval” outpaced the Season 2 debut of “XO, Kitty,” which brought in 14.2 million views in its first week on the streamer. Both “American Primeval” and “XO, Kitty” bumped “Missing You” down to third place on the TV list with 5.6 million views in its third week on Netflix.

Netflix’s Jan. 13 edition of WWE Monday Night Raw brought in 3.7 million views, making it the No. 4 most-watched TV show, and was followed by “Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action,” which scored 3.5 million views. The new season of “XO, Kitty” and upcoming new installment of “The Night Agent,” which premieres its second season in Jan. 23, also boosted the shows’ previous seasons onto the most-watched TV list, with “XO, Kitty” Season 1 coming in sixth place with 3.1 million views and “The Night Agent” Season 1 taking the No. 7 spot with 2.4 million views.

“Squid Game” Season 2 continued to dominate the non-English TV list, tallying up 13.2 million views in its fourth week on Netflix, still ranking as the most-watched non-English TV show of the week. Season 2 currently ranks as Netflix’s No. 2 most-watched non-English show ever with 165.7 million views to date, behind “Squid Game” Season 1, which still stands as Netflix’s most-watched non-English show ever with 265.2 million views to date since its 2021 release.

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The “Abbott Elementary” and “It’s Alway Sunny in Philadelphia” crossover also marked a series high with more than 8 million viewers

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“Shifting Gears” revved up nearly 17 million total viewers after seven days of cross-platform viewing on ABC, Hulu, Hulu on Disney+ and digital platforms, TheWrap can reveal exclusively.

The Tim Allen and Kat Dennings-led comedy series brought in a total of 16.95 million viewers, a 173% increase over the show’s initial live-plus-same day viewing of 6.2 million, according to Nielsen. Among adults aged 18 to 49, the show earned an 0.87 rating.

It marks ABC’s strongest series debut since “The Conners” in 2018 and the most-watched ABC series premiere on streaming to date, based on views in its first seven days on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

Excluding linear encores, “Shifting Gears” brought in 12.45 million total viewers and a 2.94 in the 18-49 demo rating, a 101% increase compared to the initial live-plus-same-day audience. On linear, the series earned 7.82 million total viewers, a 26% increase over its initial audience.

“Shifting Gears” follows the reunion between Matt (Allen), a stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop and his estranged daughter, Riley (Dennings), who comes crashing back into her dad’s life with her adolescent children. Starring alongside the pair are Seann William Scott, Daryl Chill Mitchell, Maxwell Simkins and Barrett Margolis.

Allen serves as an executive producer alongside showrunner Michelle Nader, Marty Adelstein, Becky Clements, Richard Baker, Rick Messina, John Pasquin, Jim Patterson, Bob Daily and John Amodeo. Dennings also serves as a producer on the series, which is produced by 20th Television, a part of Disney Television Studios.

In addition, the winter return of “Abbott Elementary” and crossover event with “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” reached a series high of 8.05 million total viewers in multiplatform viewing, based on the first seven days on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, and a 2.57 rating among adults ages 18 to 49. On linear, Abbott’s midseason return scored 4.9 million total viewers, up 28% from its initial live-plus-same-day audience of 3.82 million.

The episode sees the “Always Sunny” cast become volunteers to help out Abbott – and inevitably shake up dynamics among the teachers – with Charlie (Charlie Day), Mac (Rob McElhenney), Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Frank (Danny DeVito) crossing paths with Janine (Quinta Brunson), Gregory (Tyler James Williams), Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter), Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph), Ava (Janelle James), Jacob (Chris Perfetti) and Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis).

The episode was executive produced by Abbott Elementary co-showrunners and EPs Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker.

“Shifting Gears” and “Abbott Elementary” air Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, respectively, and stream the next day on Hulu.

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“The Traitors” Season 3 debuted as the No. 1 most-watched unscripted series in the U.S.

The Season 3 launch, which saw the first three episodes drop on Peacock on Jan. 9, boosted the show to reach 499 minutes watched during the week of Jan. 6, according to preliminary data from Nielsen. With the Season 3 viewing boost, “The Traitors” ranked as the week’s most-watched unscripted series.

Viewership for Season 3 was up 67% during the week of launch when compared to last season’s launch, which debuted on Jan. 12, 2024. The Season 3 launch was also buzzy on social media, with social volume up 15% from last season’s premiere.

Season 3 welcomed a fresh group of reality all-stars and celebrities including game players Carolyn Wiger (“Survivor”), Rob Mariano (“Survivor” and “Deal or No Deal Island”), Britney Haynes (“Big Brother”), Danielle Reyes (“Big Brother”), Jeremy Collins (“Survivor”) and Tony Vlachos (“Survivor”).

“Real Housewives” stars Chanel Ayan, Dorinda Medley, Dolores Catania and Robyn Dixon were welcomed alongside Bachelor Nation royalty Gabby Windey and Wells Adams, as well as actual British royal Lord Ivar Mountbatten. Additional players include Bob Harper (“The Biggest Loser”), Bob the Drag Queen (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”), Ciara Miller (“Summer House”) Dylan Efron (“Down to Earth with Zac Efron”) and professional wrestler Nikki Garcia.

Alan Cumming also returns as a producer and a host for Season 3 after winning an Emmy for outstanding host for a reality or reality competition program for the second season of the Peacock show.

“The Traitors” is produced by Studio Lambert, a part of All3Media, and is executive produced by Stephen Lambert, Mike Cotton, Sam Rees-Jones, Rosie Franks, Tim Harcourt and Jack Burgess.

“The Traitors” Season 3 releases new episodes Thursdays at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET on Peacock. Seasons 1 and 2 are also available to stream on Peacock.

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“Beast Games” is now officially the most-watched unscripted series in the history of Amazon’s Prime Video. The competition show from MrBeast was watched by more than 50 million viewers in its first 25 days.

The series also had the No. 2 most-watched series premiere of 2024 behind the Walton Goggins and Ella Purnell apocalyptic dramedy “Fallout.” Once again, these numbers tracked the series’ first 25 days on Prime Video. The series also brought in the most new Prime Video customers since “Fallout.”

Additionally, “Beast Games” reached No. 1 on Prime Video in more than 80 countries with more than 50% of its viewership coming from outside of the United States. The series has what Prime Video described as an “outsized performance” in India, the U.K. and Mexico.

The latest episode of “Beast Game” premiered on Wednesday. “One of the contestants may or may not win an island!” Prime Video teased about its sixth episode. Altogether, there are four episodes left in the 10-episode first season.

Hosted by series co-creator and executive producer Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, “Beast Games” was co-created by Sean Klitzner, Tyler Conklin and Mack Hopkins. Klitzner and Conklin also serve as executive producers for the competition series. Michael Cruz, Matt Apps, Charles Wachter, Keith Geller, Joe Coleman and Rachel Skidmore serve as executive producers.

Advertised as having the single largest prize in the history of reality television, “Beast Games” follows 1,000 contestants as they compete in a series of challenges to win $5 million. Though the series is a natural extension from the type of extreme content that has turned MrBeast into a household name, “Beast Games” has been compared to Netflix’s “Squid Game: The Challenge,” another series that asks a huge amount of people to compete for a cash prize. And much like “Squid Game: The Challenge,” its production was not an easy one. Five contestants for the show sued Donaldson and Prime Video for sexual harassment, failure to pay, false advertising and emotional distress. For his part, Donaldson has said that allegations of unsafe working conditions were “blown out of proportion.”

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“The Pitt” debuted as one of the Top 5 most-watched Max original series premieres ever, the streamer said on Thursday.

After premiering its first two episodes on Jan. 9, the medical drama saw its audience grow nearly tenfold in its first week on the streamer, doubling the average growth seen by other Max drama series. It has since climbed its way into the streamer’s Top 5 most-watched Max original debuts of all time, both globally and domestically.

“The Pitt” remained as the No. 1 most-watched show on Max during its debut week, though Max did not provide specific viewing figures. The show has received positive reviews overall, with a 92% critics score and a 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Created by R. Scott Gemmill and executive produced by John Wells, “The Pitt” chronicles the real-time action and challenges of the doctors, nurses and workers at an emergency room in Pittsburgh. Each episode follows one hour of Dr. Robby’s (Noah Wyle) 15-hour shift as the chief attendant in Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s emergency room.

Along with Wyle, the series also stars Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa, Supriya Ganesh, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell and Shabana Azeez.

The show faced legal controversy before its debut after the estate of “ER” creator Michael Crichton sued production company Warner Bros. Television and the show’s producers claiming a failed reboot of the long-running drama series was turned into “The Pitt.” Warner Bros. rebuffed the claims and creators recently told TheWrap they had “no incentive” to replicate the series.

“The Pitt” releases new episodes Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on Max.

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Prime Video’s wild card playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens has smashed records for the streamer with an average audience of 22.07 million viewers – its largest ever.

Saturday’s viewership figure, which is based on data from Nielsen’s panel-only measurement, marks NFL on Prime’s best-ever average audience, topping the previous 17.3 million viewers during Dec. 5’s Greenbay Packers and Detroit Lions match-up by nearly five million viewers, or a 28% increase. It’s also a 67% increase from the 2024 Thursday Night Football season average of 13.2 million and a 7% increase from the the 2023 Saturday Night wild card matchup between the Chargers and Jaguars, which drew 20.61 million viewers.

However, it marked a 3% decrease from last year’s Saturday night wild card matchup between the Dolphins and Chiefs, which had 22.86 million average viewers.

In addition, the Steelers-Ravens game attracted the most concurrent viewers ever to the service – with an all-time high of 24.7 million during the 9:00-9:15 p.m. ET portion of the second quarter. 

The Steelers-Ravens averaged 3.98 million viewers ages 18 to 34 – a new all-time high for the NFL on Prime and 14% increase from the 3.48 million during the Vikings Eagles game on Sept. 14, 2023 – and 9.54 million ages 18 to 49 – a new all-time high and 24% higher than the 7.69 million who watched the Cowboys-Giants game on Sept. 26.

Meanwhile, Prime Video’s NFL wild card pregame show averaged 2.03 million viewers on Saturday night while facing overlap from an earlier wild card game, marking an increase of 33% over the 2024 season average of TNF’s pregame show “TNF Tonight” of 1.53 million.

The wild card “Nightcap” postgame show averaged 3.54 million on Saturday night, marking an 74% increase of +74% over the 2024 season average of 2.04 million.

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