Political Thrillers Dominate Nielsen Streaming Charts As ‘Zero Day’ Takes Lead; ‘Saturday Night Live’ Makes First Appearance After 50th Anniversary Special

Political thrillers are all the rage right now, as illustrated by the Nielsen streaming charts for the week of February 17 to 23, where Zero Day, Reacher, The Night Agent and Paradise all appeared in the rankings.

The Robert DeNiro-starrer Zero Day debuted during this interval, soaring to the top spot with 1.84B minutes viewed. Per Nielsen, adults 50+ drove 63% of the watch time here.

What’s particularly impressive about this is that Zero Day beat out Season 3 of Prime Video’s wildly popular Reacherwhich also debuted during this window. Across all episodes, the series accumulated 1.81B minutes viewed, posting its second-best weekly performance ever, behind the week that the series debuted in 2022.

Nielsen says that 78% of the Reacher viewership this week came from the three new episodes, which could explain why Zero Day eked past, since all six episodes of that show were new. But, the series still has 16 additional episodes that audiences were certainly catching up on, which puts this title at a significant advantage when it comes to these rankings. Nielsen also says 58% of Reacher viewers were male, the largest makeup of all Top 10 titles this week.

Paradise and The Night Agent couldn’t quite make it onto the overall list, but both appears in the streaming originals Top 10. The Night Agent took eighth place with 619M minutes viewed, while Paradise came in at No. 9 with 502M.

Severance also retained a spot on the streaming originals list with 649M minutes, while The White Lotus made in appearance following the debut of Season 3 with 736M minutes viewed. Since The White Lotus airs on Sunday nights, this includes viewing for both the first and second episodes, though only a few hours for the latter.

Peacock definitely has something to celebrate as well, since Saturday Night Live made its first-ever Nielsen streaming chart appearance thanks to the 50th anniversary special, which it seems encouraged viewers to check out other episodes from Season 50 as well. Nielsen says 68% of the streaming viewership from this interval was dedicated to Season 50 episodes, and 54% of viewing fell into the 18-49 demo.

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