(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.)
Before we get started today, I’d like to ask you, the reader, for some feedback.
I have a few ideas bouncing around my strategy brain, and I want to know where you think I should target my energies. I’m thinking about writing up what I’d call a “Case Study”, where I analyze a given company or industry as if I were “putting my business school hat” back on. (And frankly, that’s a skill set I applied/apply all the time.) Right now, I’m debating between the emerging micro-drama companies (and their odd finances), MrBeast industries (since his finances and recent financing are both fascinating), the NBA & their new linear deals (with an analysis of the 2025-2026 ratings so far), or prediction markets (whose finances and value are wildly overhyped).
So let’s do a poll! What buzzy/possibly overrated topic should I cover next? (Head to Substack to vote!)
The entertainment press overhypes so much these days, but as is quickly becoming my catchphrase, it’s okay to be skeptical! (That used to be the media’s raison d’etre!)
Okay, on to today’s issue. I’m checking in on a few buzzy weekly shows (Percy Jackson; Fallout; It: Welcome to Derry), taking another look at the biggest streaming TV show of all time, and sharing the most recent data on holiday films. All that, plus Emily in Paris, another Best Picture nominee missing the charts, people are still buying physical media, the latest Harlan Coben adaptation coming to streaming, 2025 video game sales, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more.
(Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, Showlabs, TV Time trend data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of March 4th to March 11th.
You can find a link to my terminology here.)
Television – How Did Three Buzzy Weekly Series Perform?
As I wrote in my second-to-last issue, I wanted to check in on a few weekly stories after we got a few more weeks of data, since weekly series initial debuts often don’t tell the entire story.
While I was referring to Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Fallout in particular (they debuted on 10-Dec and 16-Dec respectively), I’m actually going to start with HBO/HBO Max’s It: Welcome to Derry, a show I don’t think I’ve properly given its flowers.
It made the Nielsen charts, but never made Samba TV (and wasn’t eligible for Luminate). Here’s how it stacks up on the Nielsen charts compared to past HBO/HBO Max shows:
Overall, I’d say that’s “fine”. The better numbers came from HBO’s PR team and their weekly datecdotes, which put the finale at 6.5M million in three days, with 11.5 million watching episodes globally. (The average watch numbers over the course of a season naturally increase.) That compares to Task’s 4 million in 3 days.
Moving on, Prime Video’s Fallout is winning the showdown with Disney+’s Percy Jackson so far. On Samba TV, it’s been a rock of consistency, holding down the fifth place spot on the charts. On Nielsen, it had weeks of 13.2 million, 15.3, 16.0 and then 14.3 million hour weeks. Those are good, but do look small compared to the binge released first season:
I’m curious how long this season will continue to make the Nielsen charts, but it does look like Prime Video was able to parlay the successful binge released first season into a successful season two. It also looks to be gaining some steam, though Christmas viewing may be boosting that. Notably, it had a bigger third week than The Rings of Power or The Boys, though it’s well behind Reacher:
Luminate had smaller numbers for the current season, around 6 million hours. Further, season one didn’t pop back on the Luminate charts when season two debuted, which often happens for big returning shows. (See Landman.)
As for Disney+, I’m willing to say I’m a bit disappointed in Percy Jackson’s performance so far. As recently as 2022, Disney+ TV shows could get viewership figures in the double digit millions for multiple weeks, but this show has struggled to replicate that in 2025. You can see the current season of Percy Jackson isn’t hitting that bar.
And Christmas is usually a good time for Disney! I’d add, this season never made the Samba TV or Luminate charts, which isn’t a great sign. The folks at Disney could point out that the episodes aren’t that long, averaging 41 minutes (but sometimes feeling shorter), but this still feels low. Like Fallout, we’ll see how many weeks it stays on the charts.
So how do those weekly shows compare to the king of weekly shows right now? I speak of course of Landman, Paramount+’s giant from Taylor Sheridan. Here’s how that show has reigned atop of the Samba TV charts:
You can also see Mayor of Kingstown finally fell off after a long run on Samba TV. (Though that wasn’t enough, apparently, to save it from cancellation.) Still, Landman crushes both Fallout and Percy Jackson. The Nielsen data tells a similar picture:
So through four weeks, I’d say we’re seeing two sophomore shows that are doing fine, but don’t show signs of growing their audience from strong season one starts. As for It: Welcome To Derry, it’s a good run, but still lags some other big HBO shows, likely due to the genre (horror), which has a ceiling on streaming.
I did wonder briefly if Disney and Prime Video should have avoided December and the Stranger Things juggernaut entirely, but ultimately, December is too good a month to skip. For Disney+ in particular, their lack of a year-round schedule of hits is hurting them more than anything else.
Speaking of Stranger Things…
Television – Stranger Things Smashes Records
There’s not really much to say except that Stranger Things—which put out its second and third batches of episodes on 25-Dec and 31-Dec—just crushed it.
First, with 144.2 million hours the week of 29-Dec, Stranger Things’ finale episode claimed the crown as the biggest single week on Nielsen’s charts since 2020 on streaming. Here’s how it stacks up to Netflix’s other big genre shows:
Second, the latest outing actually made money at the box office in its one-day engagement. Frankly, only getting $25 or so million feels like a miss for Netflix here, given that I think many fans would have turned out in theaters throughout the weekend for it. I had more than one conversation to this effect, that folks wanted to see it in theaters but couldn’t make it out that day. Yes, this is a personal anecdote, but add up enough people like that, and that’s real box office Netflix left on the table.
Third, Stranger Things actually bested football on Netflix as the biggest show all time. Here’s the “40 million hours club” chart showing Stranger Things.
And here’s how it stacks up compared to shows from the last six weeks. The NFL and Stranger Things are so above everything else, I have to cut the Y-axis off later in this report to even make it readable:
Lastly, its IMDb score remains an insane 8.6 on 1.7 million reviews.
Does any data not have Stranger Things as a massive hit? No. Only Samba TV had slightly weak numbers; the finale “only” had 3.7 million households watch in four days, which is still a great number. Still, those are numbers other shows (besides maybe Landman) would kill for.
Yes, this show is massive. The only remaining question is release style. Would this show have done even better if it had come out weekly? And as much as I stan for the weekly release style, at this point, Netflix basically did do a weekly rollout so I can’t complain that much. Honestly, if I were to point out one big flaw, I think Netflix might have left $100 million in box office on the table (and a big chunk of that going to the talent who created the show) by not putting it in theaters in a bigger, actual way.
Quick Notes on TV
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