Of course, football is the biggest part of it: the NFL was the top signup-driving title on both Prime Video and Netflix from September through December 2025, according to insights from analytics firm Antenna. These and more findings from the company’s “The New, New Fall Season” study were presented Wednesday by president and co-founder Rameez Tase at TheGrill, TheWrap’s annual entertainment business conference.

Because of those growing signups, however — Antenna reports the 2025 football season contributed to a 60% rise in daily signups above the preceding offseason — streamers have embraced the third quarter as an optimal time to launch new shows, echoing network TV’s traditional fall season.

“Whereas the new fall season was all about driving viewership on linear TV, we think the new new fall season is all about subscriber growth in the world of streaming,” Tase said on Wednesday. “It may not be all about driving viewership, but the fall has become the time to drive new subscriber additions to each of these streaming services.”

In an increasingly fractured streaming ecosystem, where viewers can cobble together their own TV viewing package with whichever streamers they’re subscribed to, debuting a new series when subscribers are higher could make the difference in whether or not a show succeeds, simply because there’s a higher chance for audiences to discover it as they scroll in between games.

Just as the fall streaming surge mirrors the bustling fall season on broadcast — which notably, will see some high-profile new shows like Fox’s “Baywatch” and NBC’s “Rockford Files” reboot and returning favorites like CBS’ “Matlock” and ABC’s “High Potential” move to a midseason — the streamers positioning tentpole offerings anchored by football mimics the impact of an NFL lead-in on linear, and that trend will grow as more games migrate to those platforms.

It’s like nothing really ever changed.

But drafting off of a big sporting event is a year-round strategy. Take CBS’ “Tracker,” which easily launched as the season’s most-watched entertainment program following the 2024 Super Bowl. This winter, NBCUniversal directed its Super Bowl crowd to Peacock’s “The Burbs,” which reached nearly 1 billion viewing minutes in 11 days.

Beyond football, Antenna pointed to Apple TV’s “Pluribus,” Peacock’s “The Paper,” Netflix’s “The Beast in Me” and HBO Max’s “It: Welcome to Derry” as new shows debuting in fall 2025 that were top performers with new subscribers. Notably, all of the above series scored Season 2 renewals, even “The Beast in Me,” which was initially conceived as a limited series.

Another aspect of the fall viewing surge is summer blockbusters that make their way to their respective streamers just several months later, thanks to shorter theatrical windows. Last fall that meant hits like “Superman” and “Weapons” landed on HBO Max, and this fall has already seen the streaming successes for movies like “Toy Story 5,” which scored 20 million views within its first five days on Disney+.

“The programming teams are bringing that summer box office into the fall streaming window,” Tase said. “They’re driving new subscriptions with it, and the new subscriptions are watching those titles immediately upon subscribing.”

Overall, Antenna reported that seven of eight premium SVOD services — including Hulu, Disney+ and Peacock — recorded their heaviest acquisition during fall 2025. But, as Apple TV launches new and returning series like “Ted Lasso,” “Nocturne” and “Dark Matter,” there’s a chance it could flip from seven to eight.

So as much as streaming continues to take a bigger piece of the TV pie over linear, the fall TV season isn’t going anywhere.

Taylor Frankie Paul drama boosts “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”

Ever since the controversy surrounding “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star Taylor Frankie Paul resulted in her season of “The Bachelorette” getting pulled from ABC’s lineup, fans have been waiting to get the behind-the-scenes look at the drama from the new season of “Mormon Wives.”

That anticipation worked in the show’s favor, with Season 5 debuting on Sept. 10 on Hulu as the No. 7 most-watched original series of the week with 561 million viewing minutes, per Nielsen’s streaming charts. The unscripted series had the highest concentration of adults 18-34 among streaming originals, and ranked second to “Family Guy” across all 10 overall titles.

Kimmel viewership milestone

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” wrapped up its 2025-26 season with average viewership of 2 million, ranking as the late night show’s most-watched season in eight years. In the 18-49 demo, “Kimmel” averaged a 0.18 rating across the season, ranking as the No. 1 show across late night.

The show also kicked off the 2026-27 season as the No. 1 show across late night, bringing in 2.29 million total viewers and a 0.21 rating during the week of Sept. 21.

Spooky Season begins

As “Practical Magic 2” debuted in theaters on Sept. 10, the original “Practical Magic” movie made its Nielsen top 10 debut with 236 million minutes viewed, ranking as the No. 8 movie.

Likewise as spooky season fully kicks off, 2009 animated film “Coraline,” which debuted on Hulu on Sept. 1, made its first top 10 appearance with 208 million minutes, landing just behind “Practical Magic 2.”

ICYMI:

• “The Traitors: New Blood” notches NBC’s top unscripted premiere in six years
• The “South Park” Season 29 premiere soared over the Season 28 opener among both key categories in the 18-49 demo
• MTV’s Video Music Awards returned to Los Angeles with a bang, bringing in its biggest audience since 2015
• Viewership for Lizzie Borden’s “Monster” jumped 20% from premiere week

The post Why Is Streaming Viewership So High in the Fall? It’s Not Just Sports appeared first on TheWrap.

Part of the appeal of these shows is the central rugged protagonist (almost always male), who ruthlessly and expertly navigates antagonists he comes across with a sliding scale of morals. So what happens when that hero is swapped in with a heroine, no less a woman of color? Will that male-dominated audience show up for a female lead in the same way?

Prime Video has shown confidence multiple times they will, most recently with “Reacher” spinoff “Neagley,” which sees Jack Reacher’s protégé Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) take the spotlight as the series’ titular character in an attempt to expand the franchise’s universe. It’s not the first time the streamer has gone this route, having made similar bets with female-led offshots for “Bosch” spinoff “Ballard” and “The Boys” extension series “Gen V.”

Prime Video made the smart move to launch “Neagley” as “Reacher” Season 4 closed out, making the spinoff the easy next watch, and its debut viewership indicates the audience for the show is indeed crossing over. But beyond giving the dad audience another action series, the streamer is giving its increasingly female audiences a way into the genre as well.

Early viewing data for “Neagley,” which dropped on Sept. 16, suggests Prime Video’s bet has paid off, with the spinoff landing as the No. 2 most-watched Prime original series worldwide for the week of Sept. 14, behind only flagship “Reacher.” Prime Video did not provide exact viewing figures, and streaming data from Nielsen is forthcoming.

It’s been several years now that Prime Video has sought to lock down the YA audience, but that effort ramped up earlier this year with sensation “Off Campus” kicking off a steady wave of series and films debuting on the streamer as it cements its spot as the “streaming destination for young women.” With YA fans already subscribed for the dozens of largely female-led romances, a female led might be just enough to lure them to press “play” on “Neagley.” And should they enjoy the first season, there’s already the four-season run of “Reacher” for them to dig into.

Likewise, a female lead might be just enough to lure in the wives or daughters of “Reacher’s” typical dad audience. It’s happened before.

Take “Bosch” spinoff “Ballard,” which sees Maggie Q reprise her role as Renée Ballard in the spy thriller. “Ballard” debuted last July to an impressive 1.03 billion minutes on Prime Video, landing as the No. 7 most-watched series of the week, where it remained into its second week with 886 million minutes viewed. After several more weeks in Nielsen’s top streaming charts, Prime Video renewed “Ballard” for a second season in October 2025.

Notably, “Ballard” dropped as a binge release, which Prime Video replicated for the “Neagley” launch, despite “Reacher” using a weekly release model.

However, “The Boys” spinoff “Gen V,” which centered on a queer, woman of color played by Jaz Sinclair, wasn’t so lucky. The offshoot series was canceled by Prime Video after two seasons despite showrunner Eric Kripke having key themes in mind for the third installment.

“Gen V” made it into Nielsen’s top 10 original streaming list for its Season 2 debut week in September 2025 with 424 million minutes viewed but wasn’t close to the juggernaut that is “The Boys,” which debuted its fifth and final season this April to 899 million minutes as the week’s No. 2 overall streamed show.

But unlike “The Boys,” “Reacher” has the backing of the dad contingent. Just look at what that support did for the modern prototypical dad franchise: “Yellowstone.” CBS’ “Marshals,” which centers on Luke Grimes’ Kayce Dutton, became the top broadcast show last season, and “Dutton Ranch,” which stars Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser, lassoed a Season 2 renewal from Paramount+ as it became the streamer’s most-watched original debut ever.

So far, all signs are seeming positive for “Neagley.”

Hispanic audiences show their power

Nielsen released its 2026 Hispanic Diverse Intelligence Series, which found that Hispanic audiences watched over 2 trillion minutes of television in the first half of the year, with 1.2 trillion of the minutes accounting for streaming viewership. That means that the demographic group made up 19.1% of all U.S. streaming time. That’s right about on par with the U.S. population, with the Pew Research Center reporting that Hispanics made up 20% of people in the U.S. in 2024.

Interestingly, the report notes that reality TV drove appointment viewing for Hispanic audiences, with Telemundo’s “La Casa de los Famosos” scoring up to 1.6 million Hispanic viewers, while younger Hispanic audiences made up nearly 13% of the devoted audience of Peacock’s “Love Island.”

“Dancing With the Stars” premiere maintains momentum into Night 2

The two-night premiere of “Dancing With the Stars” Season 35 scored big for ABC, with both nights ranking as the day’s No. 1 show across both total and demo viewers across entertainment programing, including streaming originals. After Night 1 brought in 6.8 million viewers and a 1.44 rating among adults 18-49, Night 2 on Wednesday averaged 6.4 million total viewers and a 1.32 rating.

In fact, both nights rank as TV’s two biggest entertainment telecasts since ABC’s airing of “The Oscars” in the demo.

Chiefs-Colts score Sunday Night Football milestones

The Kansas City Chiefs’ overtime win over the Indianapolis Colts became the most-watched Week 2 Sunday Night Football game since 2015 as it scored 24.3 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, based on Nielsen figures and first party data.

The Colts-Chiefs matchup, which peaked at 27.4 million viewers during the second quarter, marks the fourth-most watched overtime game in 21 seasons of NBC’s Sunday Night Football.

ICYMI:

• Prime Video’s “Reacher” and Netflix’s “Outer Banks” and “Beauty in Black” dominated streaming during the final weeks of summer
• Those weeks were reported together due to Nielsen’s newest streaming reports that sped up the viewership reporting process
• “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” debuted atop Netflix’s TV list as it scored viewership on par with the previous installments of the crime anthology series
• “60 Minutes” drew 6.8 million viewers for its second episode of the season Sunday, down 15% from its season premiere

The post Can Ultimate Dad Show ‘Reacher’ Expand Its Universe With Female-Led ‘Neagley’ Spinoff? appeared first on TheWrap.

In an effort to keep TV’s biggest night tighter and more engaging, the Television Academy moved seven categories from the primetime telecast to the Creative Arts Emmys, which take place the weekend prior to the main show. The telecast often extends past its three-hour mark, so on paper, it sounded like a reasonable solution.

But the switch, which TV Academy chair Cris Abrego told TheWrap had been in the works for 20 years, sparked backlash across Hollywood. The DGA, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA wrote in a joint statement that cutting the categories “devalues the contributions of the talented people the Academy is meant to honor.”

The TV Academy held firm to its decision, but the switch didn’t help move the ratings needle for the show. Viewership for Monday’s Emmys slid down to 6.7 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, according to preliminary Nielsen figures. That’s down 11.7% from the 7.6 million viewers brought in by the 77th ceremony last year, even if we compared it to last year’s early viewership numbers, the show would still be down nearly 10%.

The Emmys’ stark ratings declines show that shaking up a telecast to attract a bigger crowd is a losing battle, with the biggest winners over the last few years beloved by critics more than audiences. The changes only ended up alienating tradition-loving audiences who do tune in and watch, and the extra time spent on cheesy jokes, skits and a surprise Taylor Swift cameo — albeit recorded — failed to draw a bigger audience.

Granted, the Emmys aired on a Monday rather than the typical Sunday because of football — and it competed against Monday Night Football for viewers. But after all controversy generated within Hollywood, taking out the categories didn’t materially change the show. The program ended about three minutes early, and it would’ve wrapped even earlier if Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey hadn’t been asked to riff for a few painful minutes before presenting the night’s final award.

The latest Emmy ratings slowdown comes as industry eyes are on what comes next for the telecast, now that the current deal for it to alternate between the four major broadcast networks ended with this year’s show. The TV Academy is in advanced talks with Prime Video to stream the ceremony starting in 2027, which would strengthen the show’s accessibility and mirror how the Emmys have favored streaming content over broadcast.

Recent years have seen the broadcast networks’ parent company stream the show on their streaming arm (this year’s program played on NBC and Peacock), but finding a reliable online destination is a necessity should the Emmys hope to grow its audience. Should the Emmys move over to Prime Video, it would follow suit with the Oscars, which will move over from ABC to YouTube starting with the 101st Academy Awards in 2029. The Actor Awards (fka SAG Awards) moved from TNT to Netflix a few years ago, though its audience is significantly smaller.

Compared to the other major awards shows, the Emmys aren’t too far off from where they were prior to the pandemic, with 6.9 million viewers tuning in for the 2019 show. By contrast, the Oscars slid from nearly 30 million viewers in 2019 to nearly 18 million earlier this year, and the Grammys went down from 20 million viewers in 2019 to just over 14 million this year.

The Emmys telecast has teetered between 6-7 million viewers for the most part with the exception of the strike-delayed show in January 2024, which saw the show reach a record low of 4.3 million.

As prestige TV continues to woo critics and Emmy voters, it also further separates the everyday viewer from the fanfare, especially as fewer titles take home bigger and bigger hauls. Critical hit “Widow’s Bay” took home 14 Emmys — leaping over the record set last year by “The Studio” as the comedy series with the most wins in a single year. But the Apple show was also the least watched comedy nominee during the Television Academy’s eligibility window of June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026.

Instead it was ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” that stood as the most-watched show in the comedy category, which continues to be nominated but hasn’t won since 2023. But elevated medical drama “The Pitt” does both. It took home the series win and lead actor win, was the most-watched show among the nominated dramas.

The surprises within Monday night’s show hold a beam of hope, however, especially when TV icon Allison Janney won for her performance in “The Diplomat” in a category crowded with “The Pitt” actresses. Or when Sally Field won for Netflix movie “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” illustrating the possibility for wins outside of the frontrunners.

Will moving to streaming help audiences find the Emmys again? The solution likely isn’t that simple.

“DWTS: The Next Pro” finishes strong

“Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro” closed out a Season 1 with the biggest audience since its premiere. After viewership rebounded for four consecutive weeks, the Season 1 finale scored 4.7 million viewers within a week of viewing across ABC, Disney+, Hulu and digital platforms.

Two weeks later, the tentpole show picked up the baton with a history-making premiere.

“Adults” beats the sophomore slump

FX’s “Adults” has joined the small number of TV shows that has beat the sophomore slump, with viewership for Season 2 growing over 40% from Season 1, according to viewing figures for Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. In fact, international viewing was up 100% for Season 2, doubling the reach of Season 1.

The prequel episode, which launched ahead of Season 2, also did numbers for the show, with viewership for Season 1 growing 50% globally since its debut.

“Jersey Shore Family Vacation” goes out with a ratings bang

MTV’s “Jersey Shore Family Vacation” closed out strong, with the final 18 episodes scoring the show’s highest-rating season average in the 18-49 demo in over two years. The final episodes averaged a 0.56 rating in the demo, rising 14% over the first half of the last season.

“Jersey Shore Family Vacation” wrapped up within the top 10 cable entertainment series in the third quarter in the demo and scored the most social views of any other cable reality program during the season’s airing.

ICYMI:

• The revamped “60 Minutes” suffered double-digit ratings declines with its Season 59 premiere
• Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married Again?” scored a strong debut on Netflix, landing as the top movie of the week.
• Also on Netflix, Harlan Coben’s “I Will Find You” moved up to No. 5 on the streamer’s most popular shows of all time
• The NFL’s expansion to Australia paid off handsomely for Netflix, with the Rams-49ers matchup bringing in an average of 18.5 million viewers in the U.S. and 21.7 million globally

The post Is Shaking Up the Emmys Telecast a Losing Battle? appeared first on TheWrap.

While the Hulu thriller series from “New Girl” creator Liz Meriwether, which follows an ex-cop-turned-FBI agent (Emmy Rossum) hunting down a female serial killer (Lola Petticrew), is now getting its flowers and attracting mainstream attention, “Furious” flew under the radar of the warmer month’s summer releases with little marketing and awareness — and almost too cheesy poster art.

The three-episode premiere of “Furious” debuted in the No. 10 spot on Nielsen’s streaming originals list for the week of July 27, then fell out of the top 10 list by the following week.

But viewership grew gradually as TikTok, Threads and X users discovered and brought attention to the show, enough for Hulu to grant it a Season 2 renewal in late August. The streamer reported viewership for the penultimate episode was up 40% from the premiere. And by the time the finale dropped on Aug. 31, views were up 90% from the premiere, based on one day of viewing data.

In a crowded TV landscape, the delayed success of “Furious” proves it’s still possible for a show to break out through positive word of mouth and social media chatter. It’s also yet another example of a series finding its audience further into its weekly release, enabling the power of passionate fans to work their magic and inspire more people to join the audience before a gangbusters finale.

Not only is it less intimidating to press “play” on a series that has not yet released all its episodes, but it, in fact, provides an incentive to get started as soon as possible in hopes of joining the conversation ASAP.

The weekly release schedule has increasingly been a factor in how well a series fares in the ratings. Just look at “The Pitt” Season 2, which wrapped up earlier this year with an impressive and unique 57% rise from its first run, avoiding the sophomore slump plaguing many a Netflix binge series, including “Running Point” and “Beef.”

And even after the finale, the positive reception for the show — which scored a 98% Rotten Tomatoes with all episodes out — enabled “Furious” to keep snagging viewers even after new episodes stopped airing.

In fact, “Furious” reached its highest demand — which Parrot Analytics counts as social media interactions, search volume and active consumption — after its last episode was released, with its peak demand standing 15 times as high as the average series demand on Sept. 3 — a week after the Season 1 finale dropped on Hulu.

It has all boosted “Furious” to log 43 million hours of viewing globally across Hulu and Disney+ to date.

While it’s rare for a show to match the level of, let’s say, enthusiasm as the fans of “The Pitt,” the fervor for “Furious” is similar to that of the HBO Max medical drama: Fans have a deep respect for the quality of the series as well as the performances within it, and want to share it with others so that it doesn’t, in fact, go overlooked.

Notably, both series succeeded at elevating a classic TV genre — the political procedural and medical drama, respectively — with familiar faces both in front of and behind the camera. It’s another way shows are standing out in 2026, alongside wholly original shows like “Widow’s Bay,” which has been showered with praise throughout this Emmys season.

“Ted Lasso” returns strong

Jason Sudeikis’ “Ted Lasso” returned after a three-year hiatus to strong ratings. The Season 4 premiere boosted “Ted Lasso” to log 866 million minutes during the week of Aug. 3, landing as the No. 4 most-watched streaming series and the No. 2 streaming original for the week. Of that viewing, the single Season 4 episode accounted for 36% of its total viewing. 

The Season 4 return of “Ted Lasso” tied with the show’s highest ranking on the original chart, but the viewership this time around actually increased. The Season 3 launch week saw “Ted Lasso” log 539 million minutes across its 23 available episodes, showing that the long gap between seasons worked to build anticipation for the soccer-centric series.

“Sterling Point” locks down YA audience for Prime Video

After making waves with “Off Campus” earlier this year, Prime Video locked down another YA hit capturing the female demo with Megan Park’s “Sterling Point.” The coming-of-age series starring Ella Rubin debuted with 359 million minutes viewed as the No. 9 original streaming series of the week.

Notably, 72% of the “Sterling Point” viewership was women, successfully luring in the audience their YA slate is aiming for.

“Comics Unleashed” sees more demo wins

Bryon Allen’s “Comics Unleashed” is scoring several surprising demo wins of late. After surpassing its late night peers for the first time in late August, demo viewership for a 20-year-old “Comics Unleashed” outpaced both “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Tuesday, Sept. 1 — after midnight. Granted, this latest win came when both late night shows were repeats.

“Comics Unleashed” averaged 113,000 demo viewers during the 12:05 a.m. slot, rivaling 111,000 for Kimmel and 99,000 for Fallon, according to figures from Latenighter.

ICYMI:

• “Lanterns” kept its momentum going through Episode 3, with the DC Studios show scoring a series high
• Adam Scott-led “The Whisper Man” was Netflix’s most-watched movie last week, growing its viewership to 33.4 million views
• Netflix found its next true crime sensation in “Death of the Pastor’s Wife,” which dominated the TV list with 13.9 million views on Netflix

The post How Hulu’s ‘Furious’ Went From Sleeper Hit to Mainstream Must-Watch appeared first on TheWrap.

If you’re scratching your head thinking, “Didn’t that come out 20 years ago?” You would, in fact, be right. The Chuck Lorre-created CBS sitcom has long been a library favorite for HBO Max — frequently popping up in Nielsen’s top 10 streaming series. But “Big Bang” exploded this summer, pun intended, working its way up to become the top streaming show for the first time on the week of July 27, with 1.14 billion minutes viewed, according to Nielsen.

While catalog shows make frequent appearances in the top 10, it’s rare for an older show to actually top the chart — “Suits” is a notable example, but was an entirely different phenomenon — which makes “The Big Bang Theory’s” three consecutive weeks logging over 1 billion viewing minutes all the more impressive. But there’s a concrete reason for the spike: spinoff series “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe,” which premiered on HBO Max on July 23.

It’s just the latest example of how a new installment in a popular franchise acts as a catalyst for the original series, creating an impact akin to the Netflix effect, without Warner Bros. Discovery having to license the show to a rival streamer. What’s curious is “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” itself hasn’t appeared in the top 10 yet, but is enough of a trigger for people to go back to the antics of Leonard, Sheldon and Penny.

The surge also shows that library content can flourish on streamers other than Netflix, and how HBO Max is growing its standing in the streaming landscape since the massive growth seen with “The Pitt,” which dominated the Nielsen charts during its Season 2 rollout earlier this year.

The spinoff brings back original series stars Kevin Sussman, Lauren Lapkus, Brian Posehn and John Ross Bowie, all of whom reprise their “Big Bang Theory” roles as Stuart (Sussman) accidentally kicks off a multiverse armageddon. HBO Max said “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” is pacing as the No. 2 original comedy launch in platform history globally — but refrained from sharing exact numbers.

“Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” has not appeared within Nielsen’s streaming top 10 through the week of July 27 so far, though it’s early within the season’s run with only two episodes out during the interval. And the spinoff series is performing strong enough for HBO Max to renew it for a second season.

Unlike the typical Netflix effect which eventually sees interest die down, the strength of “The Big Bang Theory” also shows the longevity of its franchise, which now has two active Warner Bros TV-produced spinoffs between “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” and CBS’ “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.”

In fact, “The Big Bang Theory” franchise has generated over $900 million in global subscriber revenue for HBO Max and has driven over 3 million new signups to the service in that time from 2020 to 2025, according to Parrot Analytics.

“Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” is just the latest spinoff to support the franchise’s longevity. Demand for “The Big Bang Theory” since its 2019 finale shifted up when “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” first premiered in 2024, according to figures from Parrot.

The most recent spinoff, however, has been more successful in breaking through with audiences closer to its premiere, according to Parrot, which might be because “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” is more closely intertwined with “The Big Bang Theory” than “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” a spinoff of prequel series “Young Sheldon” featuring cast members from that CBS favorite.

“Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” is also breaking through with Gen Z more than the other spinoffs, according to Parrot data, while “Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage” is holding down the fort for Gen X and beyond.

Together, the spinoffs have created a strong feedback loop for the franchise, with “Young Sheldon” and “Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage” crafting easy ways in for new viewers who haven’t necessarily watched “The Big Bang Theory,” while “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” keeps longtime fans engrossed. “Young Sheldon” had its own Netflix effect spotlight earlier this spring too, when the single-cam prequel got licensed to that streamer.

“Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” took quite a while to come together — it was first announced to be in development in 2023, back when the platform first changed its name to Max. But even without yet popping up on the charts itself, the show proved it can harness interest to push its flagship to new heights.

It’s a skill the “The Big Bang Theory” franchise has shown it’s been adept at again and again.

U.S. Open kicks off strong

The U.S. Open got off to a strong start, with Sunday marking the event’s biggest opening day audience ever on ESPN. 

Across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, the U.S. Open scored 914,000 average viewerships, marking a 13% rise from last year, which only broadcast on ABC and ESPN2. Coverage on ABC averaged 1.25 million average viewers — up 7% year-over-year — while ESPN primetime coverage scored 958,000 viewers, up 10% year-over-year.

Byron Allen scores demo late night win

For the first time since taking over the CBS time slot from Stephen Colbert, Bryon Allen’s “Comics Unleashed” surpassed both of its late night competition in the demo. On Monday, Aug. 24, “Comics Unleashed” averaged 154,757 viewers in the 18-49 demo, while a Jelly Roll-hosted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” brought in 147,022 viewers and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” averaged 147,087 viewers. 

“Comics Unleashed” also surpassed the late night shows in the 18-34 demo, but was the third-most watched show overall with 713,331 viewers, compared to Kimmel’s 1.51 million viewers and Fallon’s 996,840 viewers.

“CBS Evening News” sees August gains

“CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil” wrapped up August with an average viewership of 4 million, rising 4% from the same month last year and 4% from July to reach the show’s strongest viewership since March. The evening news show also averaged 524,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo, up 5% from July.

The demo also saw a 16% week-over-week rise during the week of Aug. 24 mill marking the biggest growth of any evening newscast in the demo for the week. 

Still, it sits behind its competitors: “CBS Evening News” averaged 3.92 million viewers during the week of Aug. 24, while ABC’s “World News Tonight” averaged 8.73 million viewers and NBC Nightly News averaged 7.1 million viewers.

ICYMI:

• The first look at Grand Theft Auto VI brought in a bigger audience than anything else on Netflix last week, scoring 31.1 million views on Netflix from its Aug. 27 debut through Aug. 31
• Tyler Perry’s “Beauty in Black” Season 3 brought in its highest debut week ever with 13 million views
• Rosie O’Donnell wrapped up her week guest hosting on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to impressive numbers, ranking as the highest-rated summer substitute thus far

The post Inside ‘The Big Bang Theory’s Explosive Streaming Moment appeared first on TheWrap.

On the one hand, the league has hit record ratings highs, with the Aug. 16 matchup between the Atlanta Dream and the Indiana Fever marking the most-watched WNBA game ever on cable.

But that success came as the league has been caught in the throes of a culture war, with political controversies surrounding Fever players Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham dominating discourse about the league and fueling chatter on conservative media — including Fox News, which has devoted 13 and a half hours this summer to covering the WNBA, per Media Matters.

The controversy has fueled attention and social chatter for women’s professional basketball, but crediting it for the league’s viewership victories does a disservice to the actual game play. Women’s sports have been on an upward ratings trajectory over the past couple years and the WNBA in particular received a shot in the arm from Clark, whose sharp-shooting ability has served as a tide that’s lifting all teams.

The haters, meanwhile, aren’t nearly as big a factor as social media would indicate.

“The people that want to see it fail will use this as a reason for not watching, when they probably were never watching to begin with,” veteran sports journalist and Northwestern professor Melissa Isaacson told TheWrap. “The people who are really women’s basketball fans will continue to enjoy it as a product that continues to improve.”

For anyone unfamiliar with the drama, it boils down to two main controversies. The first centered on Clark, who was a major factor in the ratings records for the 2024 NCAA Women’s Championship. Clark’s stardom has remained, though an ugly dynamic has emerged where nearly every move made against her by a Black player sparks claims from the right that it is racially motivated, to the extent that 11 Republican lawmakers wrote WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert saying she had not addressed “repeated acts of unnecessary physical hostility and violence” against Clark.

The other side of the controversy involves Cunningham, who has been dubbed “MAGA Barbie” and become the right’s favorite WNBA player, after voicing her opposition to transgender women playing in women’s sports. The furor led to two former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, trolling trans rights advocates by citing their intentions to enter into the 2027 draft as they test the gender eligibility requirements.

The WNBA subsequently shut that down. And to be clear, no one takes them seriously.

While the WNBA league has become the right’s latest obsession, that intense interest will eventually cool as the next outrage takes center stage. And given that most right-wingers are engaging with the league on external platforms like social media or Fox News, fading attention might not even play much of a factor — if at all — in viewership.

For the most part, the WNBA’s most loyal fans have not been swayed by the drama. It’s unlikely any true fans will stray.

With the pipeline of incoming talent from the college ranks, USC Annenberg professor Miki Turner told TheWrap, “the dub is here to stay.”

“It’s been here 30 years already, and profit margins were low for about the first 10-20 years of its existence, so the fact that it has survived and expanded gives me hope that they can rise above all of the current drama,” Turner said.

In the grand scheme of things, the controversies shouldn’t faze the growth of the league, which signed an 11-year media rights agreement with Versant for USA Network to present WNBA games starting with the 2026 season.

The way forward requires some “better leadership in the front office” and a strategic approach forward from players as they engage — or don’t — with media, according to Turner. “Players are going to have to not so much watch what they say, but watch how they say it,” Turner said. “Maybe at this point in time, [Caitlin Clark’s] silence is golden.”

P.S. Streaming, linear, theatrical, creators: audiences have more places to spend their time than ever. At TheGrill Sept. 30, we’re talking with the people competing for that attention. AI Creator Day kicks things off Sept. 29. Subscribers get 50% off through Sept. 8 with code PROPERKS50.

Dolly Parton tribute specials draw eyes

Following Dolly Parton’s death on Tuesday, several networks mobilized to air specials paying tribute to the beloved country music icon and philanthropist, with each program drawing notable audiences.

ABC News’ “Dolly Parton: An American Original – Special Edition of 20/20″ scored 4.03 million viewers, almost doubling ratings for CBS’ “Dolly Parton – An American Icon,” which went head-to-head with ABC’s special and brought in 2.17 million viewers. “Dolly Parton: An American Original” also scored the best non-sports 10 p.m. telecast on any network in three months, since the season finale of CBS’ “Boston Blue.”

Rosie O’Donnell holds down ratings for Kimmel

Rosie O’Donnell made a splash in her stint as a summer substitute for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and the early ratings said so as well. On her first night hosting for the week of Aug. 24, O’Donnell brought in 1.87 million total viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen live-plus-same-day figures reported by LateNighter. It marks the biggest audience for any of Kimmel’s guest hosts so far this summer. 

While O’Donnell outpaced the fellow late night shows in the demo, the viewership didn’t by any means outpace Kimmel himself, who typically cracks 2 million viewers. Ratings for her full week of hosting will be available in the coming days.

“Big Brother” scores ratings growth

As CBS’ “Big Brother” celebrates its 1,000th episode tonight, the reality competition show is seeing notable ratings growth. Season 28 is averaging 5.21 million multiplatform viewers, a 10% increase year over year, according to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day figures.

Demo viewership across both multiplatform and streaming are also up, with the 25-54 demo rising 21% while the 18-49 demo rose 15%.

ICYMI:

• “Outer Banks” Season 5 launched atop Netflix’s most-watched TV shows lists with 9.4 million views, sliding down from last season
• Sunny Sandler’s “Don’t Say Good Luck” led Netflix’s top movies with 12.8 million views
• DC Studios’ “Lanterns” debuted among the top five series premieres on HBO Max

The post How Does the WNBA Culture War Factor Into Ratings? appeared first on TheWrap.

Now, the measurement firm is determined to get it right.

Among several shifts Nielsen will make to the way it measures TV viewing beginning Sept. 1 is fixing timing delays in the Advertising Research Foundation’s Device and Account Sharing survey, which Nielsen pulls for its monthly snapshot of the state of the TV industry.

Rather than pulling from survey data that had an 18-month delay, the company will now use more timely data, meaning the one-time adjustment — that will see streaming numbers decrease as cable goes up — won’t be as stark as streamers were worried about.

In fact, Nielsen told TheWrap the enhancements won’t change the overall trends reported in the Gauge once implemented in the September interval, which will display that one-time bump. Streaming is still expected to represent the largest share of TV, while broadcast and cable get slightly larger shares versus the current methodology.

The tweak puts to bed a controversy that’s been simmering over the last six months in the ratings world, hopefully quelling concerns from streamers and others that make up Nielsen’s client base that have been stewing. And beyond frustrated streamers, it marks another step towards more accurate ratings that fairly represent the ecosystem between streaming and linear platforms.

“Our objective is to make our data more accurate, and that means removing bias, and it means bringing us closer to the truth. [It] doesn’t always mean bigger numbers,” Nielsen SVP of product leadership Brian Fuhrer told TheWrap. “Our obligation is to the buy side and the sell side to report as accurate of data as we can.”

The fix to the data that fuels the Gauge is among several slight tweaks to the way Nielsen measures viewing, which also include using smart watch-like devices to count co-viewing as well as improving its weighting for its big data plus panel, which Nielsen rolled out last fall.

“We think all of these collectively are really an improvement in accuracy,” Fuhrer said. “These [adjustments] have been scrutinized very closely by the (Media Rating Council) and endorsed by the MRC, and they’ve urged us to get them into the marketplace.”

All of the shifts utilize the technology at Nielsen’s fingertips to more accurately depict viewing across the TV landscape, a space that has continued to be shaken up by streaming in a steep departure from overnight ratings that once reported TV viewing in one fell swoop. In fact, Fuhrer listed live streaming as the company’s next focus of expansion.

“We integrate first party data from companies like Amazon, Netflix, and hopefully in the near future additional companies as we measure their live streaming events as well,” Fuhrer said. “I think live streaming expansion is a really important one.”

As Nielsen doubles down on streaming partnerships, the company may also be speeding up how quickly it delivers its monthly streaming charts, an individual with knowledge told TheWrap, which operate on a month-long delay.

While Nielsen was once the only major voice in the ratings game, competitors like VideoAmp have been popping up and bolstering themselves with partnerships with streamers like Netflix. As Nielsen shakes off any residual contention arising from the Gauge delays, the company said it is committed to maintaining its place as the most-trusted source of ratings data, and is not slowing down on delivering any changes to keep it as such.

“Obsession” makes strong streaming debut

After its major box office success, horror phenomenon “Obsession” garnered impressive streaming viewership after hitting Peacock on July 17. The Inde Navarrette-led movie tallied 456 million minutes in its opening weekend, ranking as the No. 2 streaming movie across all platforms during the week of July 13.

The only title that overtook “Obsession” was “Project Hail Mary,” which held onto the No. 1 spot on Nielsen’s streaming movies chart for the third consecutive week with 699 million minutes viewed.

WNBA scores ratings record

Sunday’s match between the Atlanta Dream and Indiana Fever — pitting rebounding machine Angel Reese against ace shooter Caitlin Clark — became the most-watched WNBA game ever on cable — across both regular-season and postseason — as it delivered 2.6 million viewers on ESPN. Viewership for the game, which peaked at 4 million viewers from 7:15-7:29 p.m. ET, was up 178% over last year’s ESPN regular season average.

The second game of the doubleheader, the Portland Fire-Phoenix Mercury matchup, averaged 1.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched non-Indiana regular-season WNBA game ever on ESPN. Through 25 games, the WNBA is averaging 1.4 million viewers on ESPN, up 16% over the comparable point last season.

“Anna Pigeon” makes waves for USA Network

“Anna Pigeon,” which follows the titular character escape city life by becoming a park ranger, debuted as cable’s highest-rated new scripted series premiere in 2026 in both total viewers with 2.3 million viewers, and demo viewers with 269,000 viewers ages 18-49 viewers across USA, E! and SYFY, according to Nielsen live-plus-three-day figures.

The debut also marked the highest-rated USA original scripted series premiere in nearly eight years, and kept growing beyond its first weekend as it tallied 6.6 million total viewers from Aug. 7 to Aug. 10.

ICYMI:

• “My Life With the Walter Boys” Season 3 climbed to the top of Netflix’s top TV list in its second week on the streamer
• The Season 3 finale of “House of the Dragon” saw a slight 2% downtick compared to the Season 3 premiere
• “Ted Lasso” returned to Apple TV with record-breaking ratings, ranking Season 4 as the biggest launch in the streamer’s history

The post How Nielsen’s Measurement Fixes Aim to Smooth Over Gauge Contention appeared first on TheWrap.

TheWrap crunched the numbers from Nielsen’s streaming charts for June through mid-July (the streaming rankings face about a one-month delay) to find out which movies people watched most on streaming this summer, and saw Disney/Pixar’s “Hopper” tally 2.66 billion viewing cumulative minutes on Disney+ from July 1 through July 12, standing as the interval’s top streaming movie.

“Hoppers,” which debuted in theaters in March grossed nearly $400 million worldwide at the box office, was just one of several theatrical releases to find big success once they hit streaming. Amazon MGM’s “Project Hail Mary,” Disney/20th Century Studios’ “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and Amazon MGM’s “The Sheep Detectives” also landed within the summer’s top five streaming movies, each tallying over a billion cumulative viewing minutes.

A commonality among them? Long theatrical windows.

The strong numbers for these releases — and the fact that they’re dominating the streaming movie landscape — prove that longer theatrical release windows aren’t hurting these films’ performance on streaming platforms. Just look at “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which had an especially long window due to the mountains of money the franchise makes at the box office, which hit Disney+ in late June, six months after its Dec. 19 debut.

“Fire and Ash,” the third movie in Cameron’s “Avatar” franchise that ended its box office run with $1.5 billion, racked up 1.7 billion minutes viewed in just three weeks, coming out as the No. 4 most-watched streaming movie during June and part of July.

The same can be said for “Hoppers” and “Project Hail Mary” (which grossed $684 million worldwide), which both embraced a full three-month theatrical window but still managed to make a splash on streaming, straddling the line of staying relevant for those who didn’t catch the movie in theaters, as well as giving fans who did enough of a breather before they revisit a new favorite.

“Project Hail Mary” also double-dipped — the film made its streaming debut first on MGM+, then on Prime Video a few weeks later.

This falls in line with a trend across the film industry that has seen studios shift to a 45-day theatrical window, with Universal vowing to extend its minimum window for all films starting in 2027. The proof is in the pudding here — a longer window not only allows for bigger box office, but also has no adverse effect on streaming viewership.

The outlier here is “The Sheep Detectives,” less of a box office hit (it made $131 million against a budget of $75 million) but a critical darling, which had shorter one-and-a-half month window from its May 8 theatrical release. But Amazon MGM made a pivot when the film fell off at the box office, pushing it to streaming earlier to take advantage of the positive word of mouth.

It wasn’t just trickle down from the box office that generated streaming success; several of the top movies are earlier movies from franchises that were about to debut new installments. “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” Tom Holland’s first solo “Spider-Man” film, tallied up 518 million viewing minutes across two weeks in early July ahead of the “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” premiere on July 31, and viewing for previous “Toy Story” movies spiked ahead of the “Toy Story 5” theatrical debut in June.

Part of the “Spider-Man” spike happened on Netflix, with both “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming” landing in the No. 3 and 4 spots on the films list.

But while Netflix — which is facing a slower season on the TV side — doesn’t release its films in theaters often, it still found success against the box office heavyweights across a variety of genres.

Romcoms “Voicemails to Isabelle” and “Office Romance,” Eric Andre comedy “Little Brother” and Millie Bobby Brown actioner “Enola Holmes 3” scored solid viewership, while the streamer’s buzzy true crime documentary, “Maternal Instinct,” skyrocketed to the No. 2 spot — just behind “Hoppers” — for the interval with nearly 2 billion minutes viewed. “72 Hours” and “The Last House” have also performed well later into the summer.

And while “The Devil Wears Prada 2” didn’t make it within the interval as it debuted on Disney+ and Hulu in late July — we’ll expect to see it hit Nielsen charts later this month — the legacy sequel made waves as the biggest live-action movie premiere on the platforms since “Deadpool & Wolverine” with 15.2 million global viewers in five days.

Notably, it was Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video that were home to the top 15 streaming movies, though this interval cuts off before Universal Studios hit “Obsession” made its way to Peacock on July 17. And that’s not even mentioning “The Odyssey,” which is still shattering box office records and will land on the NBCUniversal streamer later this year.

Shark Week takes a bite out of cable

Shark Week scored its strongest performance in seven years, boosting Discovery Channel to rank as the No. 1 primetime cable network for the week among adults, men and women 25-54. 

Across Shark Week prime telecasts for the week, the programming averaged a 0.77 rating among adults 25-54, according to live-plus-three-day figures, marking the largest year-over-year increase in 13 years and the first year of ratings growth since 2023.

ESPN scores WNBA viewership win

Saturday’s WNBA game between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky averaged 2.6 million viewers on ABC, ranking as ESPN’s No. 2 most-watched WNBA game ever — a milestone the network hit for the second consecutive week.

Viewership for the match was up 79% compared to last year’s ABC regular season average, and, through 22 games, the WNBA on ESPN networks is averaging 1.3 million viewers, up 5% year-over-year.

HGTV ratings milestone

“Ugliest House in America” Season 8 is off to a strong start. The HGTV show scored notable ratings for Episode 2 on July 27, with a 0.72 rating among adults 25-54 and a 1.04 rating among women 25-54, according to Nielsen live-plus-three-day viewing figures. This marks the highest-rated episode for the latter demo in series history.

The ratings boosted the show to triple-digit increases — 260% and 353%, to be exact — over the previous year.

ICYMI:

• “The Last House,” the sci-fi thriller movie starring Greta Lee and Wagner Moura, tallied 27.5 million views on Netflix in its opening weekend
• “The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare” remained Netflix’s most-watched TV series with 10.6 million views in its second week
• Hallmark+’s “Paris Is Always a Good Idea,” garnered nearly as many viewers as the streamer’s biggest hits. Read our interview with president Darren Abbott about the company’s big bet on streaming here

The post What Movies Did People Watch Most on Streaming This Summer? appeared first on TheWrap.

The international soccer tournament couldn’t be more different than the reality dating show featuring bikini-clad contestants finding love in Fiji, but there’s one key theme tying the juggernauts: They both encouraged and created an environmental of communal viewing that skyrocketed their ratings to historic levels.

Just take “Love Island USA,” which saw co-viewing with at least one other person make up nearly half of its record-breaking Season 8 audience, which totaled 19 billion minutes viewed to stand as Peacock’s most-watched original season ever, according to Nielsen figures.

And while co-viewing is nothing new for sports — especially a major sports event that only comes around every four years — this year’s tournament moved soccer into the upper echelon of sports in the U.S. as it became the most-watched FIFA World Cup in U.S. history as well as Spanish-language media history.

The success for both summer events speaks to the desire for community, whether that means watching with friends and family or engaging with other fans online or at the office the next day. In a sea of endless TV options watching something that others are engaging with guarantees value in the time invested, and it’s also likely the shared experience boosts your enjoyment of the program itself.

And that communal viewing doesn’t necessarily have to be IRL; both events found a lively social media audience, with “Love Island USA” Season 8 generating over 5 billion video views across social channels, ranking as the No. 1 most social series program since its launch.

Likewise, the World Cup generated 2.25 billion video views across social platforms, more than nine times the combined total generated during the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.

While “Love Island U.S.A.” took on the challenge of maintaining and growing the show’s already massive audience after it broke into the cultural zeitgeist in Season 6, the World Cup managed to break through in a way it hasn’t before. It’s hard to say exactly what facilitated the shift, as it’s likely a mix between increased accessibility both across platforms as Fox and Telemundo/Peacock shared broadcasting duties, as well as timing, with the U.S., Mexico and Canada serving as host countries.

Additionally, flashy, star-studded performances that resembled the likes of a Super Bowl halftime show boosted the final match between Spain and Argentina to reach a combined viewership of 62.8 million across Fox, Telemundo and Peacock. That’s more than double the viewership reached by Game 5 of this year’s NBA finals, which scored 24.5 million viewers, but is exactly half of the 125.6 million viewers that tuned in for the 2026 Super Bowl.

Credit goes to the World Cup organizers for making the halftime show — which included the likes of Madonna, Shakira, Justin Bieber and BTS — into a Super Bowl-level performance, again turning the final match into a must-watch cultural event that would end up on your feed, whether you watched it or not. In the same way, Peacock has turned “Love Island USA” into must-see TV that airs nearly every day for six weeks.

It’s another win in the books for NBCUniversal, which wrapped up its Legendary February to ratings success earlier this year. And other companies are benefiting from this rise in communal viewing interest as well. “Big Brother” has aired multiple episodes a week every summer for 28 seasons and counting. This year saw its ratings rise for its Season 28 premiere in July, with the launch averaging 3.9 million viewers, a 22% increase from last year to capture the show’s most-watched premiere since July 7, 2021, which averaged 4.3 million viewers.

Hulu is also hoping to get in on the gains as it refurbishes “The Circle,” a social competition that ran for seven seasons at Netflix. In this iteration, the show will be filmed in real time and introduce audience voting, giving viewers the ability to shape the game as it unfolds.

NBC’s MLB coverage hits a home run

NBC Sports had a winning baseball Sunday, marking the first time in “Sunday Night Baseball” history that three consecutive games have topped 3 million viewers.

Those victories were made up of the Boston Red Sox-Los Angeles Dodgers game, which scored 3.8 million viewers on Sunday, as well as the Dodgers-Yankees game on July 19 that tallied 3.9 million viewers and the Yankees-Phillies matchup on July 26 that drew in 3.2 million viewers.

“Stranger Things” tops all streaming shows

Residual viewing for the “Stranger Things” series finale on New Year’s Eve boosted the Netflix series to become the most-watched streaming series for the first half of 2026 with 23.26 billion minutes, according to Nielsen data.

Behind “Stranger Things” was kids favorite “Bluey,” which tallied 22.81 billion minutes from January to June. HBO Max’s “The Pitt” was close behind with 21.12 billion minutes. Also in the top 10 were “Bridgerton,” alongside library favorites “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Spongebob Squarepants,” “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers” and “Paw Patrol.”

Ben Affleck boosts “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

Ben Affleck and Jamie Ding’s $1 million win on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” boosted the ABC competition show to its best performance in a year since Matt Damon and Ken Jennings won the $1 million prize last summer. The episode scored 4.2 million viewers — up 4% from the prior week — and became the top program of the night for the second week in a row among total viewers.

ICYMI:

• “The Devil Wears Prada 2” sashayed to 15.2 million global viewers in five days across Disney+ and Hulu
• Netflix found its next docuseries obsession in “The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare,” which tallied 18.2 million views in its first week 
• “The Five Star Weekend” cracked 2.1 billion minutes watched as Peacock’s No. 1 scripted series of all time, landing a Season 2 renewal from the streamer

The post Summer Ratings Trend: How Communal TV Watching Made a Comeback appeared first on TheWrap.

That’s according to Bryan Goski, chief revenue officer of media measurement firm VideoAmp, who believes his company’s approach of providing a more holistic view of not only viewership data, but how it links up with consumer interests gives it a potential edge against the leader in this business, legacy metric company Nielsen.

“We believe that the metric ecosystem has been broken for decades and there is room for improvement,” Goski told TheWrap, noting the Media Rating Council (MRC) and Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) has publicly acknowledged this challenge.

On Wednesday, VideoAmp said it would pair its TV ratings with MediaRadar’s advertising intelligence platform, providing clients with a “complete look” at audience and ad competitive data side-by-side, rather than the “silos” the data typically sits in, according to Goski.

It’s a key way that VideoAmp hopes to distinguish itself in the audience measurement game, which is largely dominated by Nielsen, which stands as the only measurement company with accredited, first-party streaming data. For Goski, the key to winning lies in evolving with the times, as seen by VideoAmp’s aim to deliver holistic data across linear and streaming, as well as demo info beyond the age and gender once valued by traditional TV.

The partnership goes beyond traditional TV demo measurements — which rely on measurements like adults 25-54 or women 18-49 — to single out advanced audience segments, like women 18-24 who own their cars for example, in an effort to help advertisers prove their value in the marketplace. “TV still commands $50 plus billion of media spend — every dollar has to be justified, especially today,” Goski told TheWrap.

“We feel like the people that are currently providing that measurement are doing so insufficiently, and they’re devaluing the content and ad revenue of our partners, so we’re not going to relent on that. We’re going to continue to innovate,” Goski said.

Goski said the key to improving audience measurement efforts is to create mechanisms that can capture data across platforms, as digital and streaming services continue to grow their audiences while broadcast and cable lose steam. Historically, he noted, measurement systems were based on small sets of data, or what is known in the business as the panel approach. But now, media measurement companies can partner with digital and streaming services to get a fuller picture of their audiences — if they’re willing to share the data.

Nielsen made the switch to combine panel data with viewing figures from big data companies including Roku, Comcast, Dish, Vizio, and DirecTV last year —  and stands as the only measurement provider with accreditation for big data plus panel and first-party live streaming measurement — but VideoAmp is getting in on the game too.

“Rather than relying on small sample sets that we’re going to extrapolate … what we actually want to do is have as census-level as possible data in a way that makes our clients feel comfortable [to] pass to us so that we can represent in the ecosystem the most full, the most robust view of their data that we believe no one else has,” Goski said.

Speaking of evolving toward the future, VideoAmp has embraced AI along the way, with Goski noting that AI serves as the “underpinning” of the company’s data processing, as newly appointed CEO Tony Fagan mandated the company to “move into the space very aggressively.” The company has been open about its goal to move towards a “fully AI-powered media performance platform,” with Goski pointing to a chat function clients can use to understand how certain audience segments are resonating with their programming.

While Nielsen stands as the undeniable ratings measurement top dog, VideoAmp has established itself with some of the biggest companies in the industry, including Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, Fox, TelevisaUnivision AMC Networks and A+E Networks. Paramount notably relied on VideoAmp during its contract dispute with Nielsen in 2025, though subsequently signed a multi-year agreement with Nielsen after a month. And Goski noted the “high” likelihood that VideoAmp will work with streamers later in the year “to make sure that we have not only the most robust but the most accurate data set.”

One area that has drawn in high-profile clients for VideoAmp is live events and sports, with Netflix utilizing the measurement company for viewership of its live WWE events.

And Goski remains bullish about VideoAmp’s growth moving forward. “I do believe in this upfront we’ll expand our market share, and then as we move into next year, we’ll really expand our market share even further,” he said.

Shark Week swims to strong start

Discovery’s annual Shark Week swam to a strong start, with its first night on Sunday, July 26, averaging a 0.94 rating in the adult 25-54 demo, ranking as the highest-rated Night 1 since 2023.

That day, Discovery Channel ranked as the No. 1 cable network among adults 25-54 and men 25-54. The network also owned the top three ad-supported cable telecasts among adults 25-54 and men 25-54 with “Air Jaws: Red, White & Breach,” “Invasion of the Mega Sharks” and “K-Pop Shark Heroes.”

“CBS Evening News” hits slow July

Tony Dokoupil is poised to see his lowest monthly ratings since taking over “CBS Evening News” in January, with July — which is already sleepy for TV ratings — averaging 3.9 million viewers thus far.

The only thing saving grace for CBS News is that July 2025 slid even lower, meaning that “Evening News” saw a slight 2% rise in viewers year-over-year. The network also touted the program has grown the demo year-over-year for three straight months as it averaged nearly 500,000 demo viewers. CBS News isn’t alone, though: ABC News is facing its lowest rated primetime average in the 25-54 demo since 1992.

“The Bear” ratings drop

As the fifth and final season of “The Bear” dropped all eight episodes on June 25, the series generated 587 million viewing minutes during the week of June 22, landing as the No. 5 most-watched streaming original on Nielsen’s charts.

That’s down 36% from the viewership “The Bear” pulled in for its Season 4 debut last year, which saw the series tally 917 million viewing minutes during its debut week.

ICYMI:

• “I Will Find You” made its way into Netflix’s top 10 most popular TV list of all time
• Netflix’s “Swapped” also logged enough views to boost the title into the No. 9 spot on the all-time most popular list with 143.2 million views, moving up from the No. 10 spot
• “Live with Kelly and Mark” saw ratings success for its Fourth of July extravaganza as total viewership rose 5% year-over-year, TheWrap revealed exclusively

The post This Media Measurement Firm Has a Plan to Fix Hollywood’s ‘Broken’ Metric System appeared first on TheWrap.