Nielsen Records New Streaming Highs As All Top-10 Titles Surpass 1B Minutes Viewed, Led By ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ ‘Suits’ & ‘House Of The Dragon’

Nielsen recorded its biggest week of streaming ever over the Fourth of July holiday, as all ten of the most-watched titles reached over a billion minutes viewed.

In total, the week led to more than 313B viewing minutes from July 1 to July 7 — the highest that Nielsen has ever recorded and, the company posits, possibly the largest weekly streaming total ever — led by Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Fwhich topped the charts with 2.1B minutes viewed.

The No. 2 title elicits a bit of déjà vu, as Suits once again found itself on the charts with 1.5B minutes viewed. While that’s nowhere near the record-breaking performance the series saw over last year’s holiday week, it’s an impressive total likely induced by the fact that the final season finally landed on Netflix. Previously, only eight of nine seasons were available, with the ninth remaining solely on Peacock.

“For people that didn’t watch it on cable and don’t have Peacock, which is a smaller footprint than Netflix, it feels just like an original,” explained Nielsen SVP Brian Fuhrer. “Dropping Season 9 on Netflix, for a lot of people, was like dropping a new season of Bridgerton. It might as well have been never existed before, because this is their window into the streaming world.”

The House of the Dragon soared 24% in viewership to 1.3B minutes, while Your Honor and The Bear rounded out the top five with 1.2B minutes viewed each.

Dexter actually fell from the week prior, though its 1.2B minutes are still a testament to the powerful Netflix effect, since the series landed on the streamer in mid-June. But previously, all eight seasons had been on Paramount+, never putting up numbers like these.

The obvious answer as to why Netflix has the power to catapult previously under-appreciated titles into the limelight is the breadth of its subscriber base. With more than 270M subscribers, it has a unique ability to target a wide range of demographics that some of its competitors don’t have access to on such a large scale.

But, Fuhrer also points to Netflix’s algorithm and recommendation engines, which are a key component of what has been coined “the Netflix effect.” In a way, it allows Netflix to somewhat manufacture hits instead of waiting for them to become popular more organically.

“It’s just self-reinforcing the ability to promote content that may be the most valuable thing that Netflix has right now, and it’s something that the traditional media companies are really struggling with,” he said.

No one will be surprised to see Bluey, The Boys or Grey’s Anatomy among these behemoth titles. In its first full week on Netflix, A Family Affair also grew just slightly to surpass that 1B minute mark, but it stayed in ninth place.

Prior to this week, the previous record for most billion-minute titles in one measurement period was seven. Only a quarter of the titles that have appeared in the overall weekly top ten lists have hit a billion minutes since Nielsen began recording in 2020.

Nielsen also says that July 7 posted the fourth highest daily level of streaming it has ever recorded, only outdone by January 13 2024 — when Peacock hosted an NFL playoff game — and the post-Super Bowl weekend of February 17 and 18.

There are several factors that contributed to such a monster week for streaming usage, Fuhrer says, pointing out that the holidays are consistently a heavy viewing period. Generally, the holidays also coincide with sports, particularly football, but in the lead-up to the Olympics, there wasn’t much to compete with on the sports front.

It’s also outside the traditional linear television season, meaning that the streamers have less to compete with in terms of new content, which explains why the summer in general sees viewers heavily leaning toward streaming.

Most of all, Fuhrer attributes this milestone to the “diversity of content” available to viewers as the streamers mature and begin to expand their offerings.

“Your Honor has been a surprising success, as has Dexter recently. Those are titles, particularly Your Honorthat have really broad demographic footprints,” he said, adding that titles like The Boys, The Bear and House of the Dragon attract a more niche audience.

Both types of titles are necessary to a healthy streaming ecosystem to ensure “there’s kind of something for everybody in here,” he added.

While certainly a milestone in the streaming landscape, Nielsen does not expect this to be the peak.

“I think people overestimate the impact and how quickly it’s going to happen, but then they underestimate where we’re ultimately going to end up,” Fuhrer said, pointing out that many of these platforms, including Peacock, which is currently hosting the Paris Olympics to great success, are in their early years.

As they mature, it is natural that they would hit a stride when it comes to the content they are able to offer to an audience. “You can’t put your eggs in just one basket, and the ability to put content and advertising across all these platforms is really critical,” he said.

See the Top 10 below.