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Unlike the last recap article—which showed how Netflix dominated the new shows in 2025—looking at returning TV shows, multiple streamers are thriving. Well…two or three streamers are decidedly not thriving, but many non-Netflix streamers had multiple hit shows. Netflix is out in front, for sure, but not quite as far out in front as many narratives suggest.
I’ll save most of my strategy thoughts for the last installment in this series, but I was worried these articles might not be too spicy. That I didn’t have enough hot takes. But that hasn’t been the case. Almost every chart yields a fun takeaway.
Looking at all the data, I did remember another reason this recap took a bit longer this year: I’m using, compiling, and analyzing more viewership data sources than ever before, looking at Samba TV, a full year’s worth of Luminate data, and Nielsen (like always). In fact, for the first time, I’m opening my annual TV/film recaps with a non-Nielsen data source! Which I love, because multiple sources of data allow for multiple sources of truth.
This will be long…so please subscribe. I try to please two masters with every article, giving enough free material to make it worth it for free subscribers to stay subscribed, but with enough stuff behind the paywall to make the subscription worth it. Really, though, I need subscribers to keep this newsletter going.
Okay, let’s dive right in!
Samba TV’s Top 2025 Returning Shows
Let’s start with the Samba TV 2025 weekly charts.
As a reminder, Samba TV measures the number of U.S. households that watch something on streaming, then ranks the top ten titles (film and TV) into a weekly list. I give each title a “score”, which is the reverse of its rank on the Samba TV list, with the number one film or TV show getting ten points and last place getting one. As I’ll discuss below, this method prioritizes “direction” over “magnitude”. Also, if a show debuts in December, I still include its 2026 viewership in this analysis, but I’m only looking at shows that came out in 2025.
In total, 38 returning TV shows made the Samba TV weekly charts, which is fewer TV shows than the other data sources, mainly because Samba TV combines films and TV shows into one top ten list.
Here’s the first chart, the top 25 new shows:
See what I mean about how the streaming landscape looks competitive? The first five shows are all non-Netflix shows (with one giant caveat, which I’ll get to in a second). Mainly, Paramount+ has a “killer app”, so to speak, in Taylor Sheridan and his almost effortless ability to mint new hit TV shows on streaming (and broadcast, now, to be fair). Should the new Paramount regime have let a rival woo him away? Absolutely not!
I wrote last update that all the streamers had a “lackluster” 2025, but that was for new shows. As you can see, HBO did well in 2025. I’d argue that, since Apple TV is aggressively deficit-financing its way into HBO’s “critically acclaimed/buzzy TV shows” lane, the head of HBO, Casey Bloys, is slightly underrated right now.
Prime Video did just okay. Peacock did poorly, with only one hit show. And the Disney corporation, meaning Disney+ and Hulu…yeesh. Just one show between their two streamers. I’ve got a “What’s wrong with Disney television?” article in the writing queue, but to repeat a point I’ve written twice now: this year, almost every Disney TV/streaming TV executive got a promotion. I’m not sure what the new Disney leadership saw in the data to justify that call.
Fun fact: the two “last place shows” (to be fair, at least they made the charts!) are Severance and Tires tied at “1” a piece.
Netflix dominates the back-end of this chart, so let me highlight the main drawback to this dataset: it measures “direction” (the order of the top shows) not “magnitude” or how many households actually tuned in. To use an analogy, imagine if, looking at weekly box office data, we never had any numbers actually attached to the results. All we had was the ranking. In that world, a dud from January (like, say, Amazon-MGM’s Mercy, the number one film for the weekend of 23-January) would look like it did as well as Amazon-MGM’s Project Hail Mary, a genuine blockbuster. In terms of “direction”, they’re both number one films! But Project Hail Mary grossed so much more for Amazon!
All of which is to say, yeah, Stranger Things is absolutely HUUUUUUGE, but you can’t tell that by this cut of the data. (Stay tuned for later…)
This data source is a bit biased against binge-released TV shows and giant hits, as you can see in our next chart:
Since weekly shows can show up on the charts week after week, binge-released shows tend to pop, then burn out. Even looking at this list, batch-released shows tend to do better. But while I think this is a useful data cut to look at, even coming from a “release your shows weekly!” advocate like myself, I wouldn’t use this data cut alone to justify my strategy.
Next up, here are the top shows by how many weeks they made these charts:
Again, do I think either Fallout or The Handmaid’s Tale were bigger than Stranger Things? No, of course not. If anything, I’d say it shows how truly impressive Stranger Things’ final season was by making it to seven weeks on the charts. Also, let’s not lose sight of the size of Landman; I get the feeling some people in town don’t love it, but it sure resonates with viewers.
Now, why is this look useful? I think it popped at least one interesting story: The Summer I Turned Pretty did really well. This show is, sorry, was so underrated! And I have no idea why this show is ending after a film comes out.
Samba TV’s Top 2025 Top Shows
Samba TV also releases some annual data, so let’s take a quick look at that:
Three of the top shows in 2025 came out weekly and from non-Netflix streamers, with Ginny & Georgia and The Night Agent as exceptions. As always, with lists like this, the 2025 recap is biased towards shows that came out earlier in the year. (Stranger Things season five hadn’t actually come out when Samba TV published this data, since the report was from November.)
Samba TV also looked at shows with the biggest openings, and that actually reveals a 2025 under-performer: The Last of Us.
Listen, the show opened up big and then did well on many charts. But it also had a low completion rate and seemed to disappoint its fans. This also confirms that Untamed and Wednesday were giant hit shows.
Luminate’s Top 2025 Returning Shows
Let’s move on to Luminate.
(See? I saved my look at Nielsen’s data for after Luminate, a major detour from past years. This isn’t meant as a slight to Nielsen—whom I love—but more props to the other two major streaming viewership data sources and how much I appreciate them putting out data regularly. Also, heads up, viewership data companies: if you’re not releasing your data weekly, you can’t really complain about Nielsen’s methodologies or industry dominance.)
Luminate measures “living room” viewership (which means TVs, which can be anywhere in a house, but not mobile devices) in the US, then they use some interest measures to extrapolate mobile viewing. Plus they organize their data by season, which is the main difference between them and Nielsen, who publishes data by series. Because of that, Love is Blind, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and Beauty in Black (which each released two seasons in 2025) showed up on the charts twice. But I kept “batched” seasons (like Stranger Things) lumped together.
Here’s the top-line chart:
Finally! Stranger Things takes the top spot! But just by a hair over Landman and, most surprisingly, Love Island USA (which, reminder, is a daily show during the summer, so it has lots and lots of episodes). I’d also note that 1923’s second season does really well here, too, but in a notable step in viewership lower than the top three shows.
Conversely, Squid Game’s third season just wasn’t as big as I’d have guessed. I had to double-check Fallout all the way down at thirteenth place, and yeah, it really was that low according to Luminate. Similarly, when I first started writing about the streaming wars, You was one of the shows that helped put Netflix’s domination on the map, showing that they could “make a hit out of anything” but it’s faded as time’s gone on.
We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out…
- …whether streaming TV shows can last longer than five seasons…
- …the (very expensive) genre that does terrifically for returning shows…
- …the only foreign-language hit in the US…
- …Stranger Things’ truly impressive Nielsen viewership…
- …which TV shows made all the top 25 viewership charts…
- …17 more images…
- And a lot more…
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