According to Nielsen, the most-watched original show on streaming last year was Ted Lasso. The fan-favorite Apple TV+ series concluded after three seasons back in May, and absolutely dominated its platform. For context, Apple TV+ has the lowest subscriber count of any streaming platform that submitted its numbers for Nielsen’s rankings. That means a comparably small group of people was so committed to watching and rewatching the series that it outpaced shows from places like Netflix, where the potential ceiling was significantly higher. No wonder Apple has been loathe to give a definitive “no” to talk of a potential follow-up or spinoff series down the line.
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As one might expect, Netflix dominated the year’s top ten, with seven of the ten slots gobbled up by the undisputed industry leader in streaming. Besides Ted Lasso, the only non-Netflix shows in the top ten were Jack Ryan at Prime Video and The Mandalorian at Disney+.
Per Deadline‘s accounting, Ted Lasso accoutned for 16.9 billion minutes across all 24 episodes in 2023. That’s 2.5 billion more than Netflix’s The Night Agent, which took second place. An analyst quoted in their story cited a slow-but-steady approach, with Lasso rarely scoring enormous numbers, but always being consistent. And having a 76-minute finale likely didn’t hurt watch time either.
In terms of acquired content, Suits unsurprisingly dominated the year with 57.7 billion minutes. For context, even Ted Lasso would not have cracked the top ten shows overall, with Supernatural rounding out the top ten at 22.8 billion minutes. Some of that is just about volume; Brian Fuhrer, Nielsen’s SVP of Product Strategy, told Deadline that things like Suits (with eight seasons) and Supernatural (which had 15) have so much content that anyone getting into a binge cycle is likely to spend a ton of time with that title. It’s also more common with hour-long dramas, although some long-running half-hour sitcoms have such massive audiences that things like The Big Bang Theory can find their way into the top ten as well.
“Originals are sprinters, like Usain Bolt getting that quick run, and the acquired titles are more distance runners,” Fuhrer said.
Kids’ content did particularly well, too, with Bluey and Cocomelon both showing up on TV’s top ten list, and Moana and Encanto earning the top two spots for most-streamed movies of the year.
You can see all three seasons of Ted Lasso now on Apple TV+.
