(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.)
Well, we made it. The final article in my 2024 viewership recap. If you would like to read the whole thing…
- You can find the film flops here and here.
- You can find the TV shows flops here and here.
- You can find the top films here.
- You can find the top TV shows here and here.
- Then I declared my winners and losers in various categories here.
- You can find the 2023 recaps here and here.
- And my 2022, 2021 and 2020 are all stored here.
Today, I’m recapping the winners and losers for genre and streamers. No need to keep you waiting, let’s get right into it with a brand new category…
Winner of the Year: Creator – Taylor Sheridan
Honorable Mention: Shonda Rhimes
Taylor Sheridan almost single-handedly saved Paramount+, putting them into contention as a major force in the streaming wars. He had back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back hits. Literally five hit shows in a row from summer 2024 to early 2025: Mayor of Kingstown to Tulsa King to Lioness to Landman (huge, mega-hit) to 1923. All of these shows made the Nielsen charts, and all of them for multiple weeks on the charts.
He’s not only successful; he’s also insanely prolific.
Taylor Sheridan seems like the type of guy who doesn’t need me to tell him that he’s great, but I’ll do it anyway: bro, you’re amazing.
As for Shonda Rhimes, I’ve long been bullish on her, and this year shows why: she had the top returning show (Bridgerton) and the top acquired show (Grey’s Anatomy) in 2024. I mean, she beat Squid Game! Bravo as well.
I think it’s very, very hard to accurately discern which creators move the needle in Hollywood and who doesn’t, but not with these two.
Winner of the Year: Streamer – Prime Video
Honorable Mention: Netflix, Paramount+
Listen, I’m as shocked as you are. On the one hand, you can look at a chart like this…
…and say to yourself, “Uh, Netflix?” But when you factor in the fact that Prime Video had the #1 film on streaming (Red One) and they have the NFL, which just dominates the ratings charts, then yeah, they’ve number one.
Sure, you could argue, “What’s so genius about grabbing the NFL rights? Of course, the NFL is popular,” to which I’d respond: how come no one else did it? (Well, the reason is lucrative transmission fees, and broadcast advertising beats smaller streaming ad revenue, all of which requires a stomach for, likely, financial losses, but still.)
Also, I’m aware of the irony that Prime Video won the year after letting go of Jen Salke last month, but this comes down to the NFL being outside of her purview, Red One proving that Prime Video needed to commit to theaters a while ago (which might also not have been in her purview, but still, Road House should have gone to theaters), and they were spending too much on some shows (Rings of Power, Citadel, kind of Fallout) while not making more of the shows their audience wants (less prestige, more broadly appealing fare).
The world is complicated.
As for second and third place, Netflix remains the “default” streamer and clearly dominates most viewership charts, but it’s hard to give them the win when 2024 may have been the year when they started to take a step back. They just weren’t as dominant as past years, but if you want to give them the win, I won’t argue too much.
And as I just wrote above, Paramount+ took a huge step up this year off the back of Taylor Sheridan. So they get a nod as well.
Loser of the Year, Streamer…
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…
- The (probably not surprising) Streaming Loser of the Year…
- What genres hit (for film and TV)…
- and what genres didn’t (for film and TV)
- And a lot more…
…please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
