Nielsen: Week of July 4 Set Streaming Records

Nielsen is reporting that July 2024 produced multiple new streaming records, with the week of July 1 – July 7 recording over 313 billion viewing minutes across streaming platforms. That was the highest level of streaming consumption ever for a single measurement week in Nielsen’s Streaming Top 10.

In addition, Nielsen said that Sunday, July 7 notched the fourth-highest daily level of streaming viewership ever recorded by Nielsen. It is outdone only by three other weekend dates with holiday ties: January 13, 2024—the most-streamed day on record—which included the NFL Wild Card playoff game on Peacock, and this year’s cold, post-Super Bowl weekend, February 17 and 18.

The July holiday week also produced some fireworks on Nielsen’s Streaming Top 10 charts. For the first time ever, all 10 titles on the overall list exceeded 1 billion viewing minutes. This crushes the previous record of seven billion-minute titles in a single week, which had only happened twice before. Moreover, in nearly five years of weekly Top 10 reports, only 25% of charting titles have ever crossed the billion minute threshold, further emphasizing the extraordinary nature of the week, Nielsen said.

It’s not uncommon for holiday weeks to coincide with notable upticks in TV watch time, and over the past few years, summer holidays have aligned with explosive jumps in streaming viewership, Nielsen said.

The Fourth of July holiday week in particular is a big driver of this phenomenon and in the past two years has included a 3.8 billion minute performance by Suits in 2023, and 4.8 billion minutes for Stranger Things in 2022.

This banner week, which highlighted high streaming volume despite lower single title peaks, was led by the Netflix summer flick Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. The Eddie Murphy movie drew 2.05 billion viewing minutes and inspired a walk down memory lane for many, as half of its viewers were over 50.

Looking back at the same week in 2023 (July 3 – July 9, 2023), four of this week’s billion-minute titles are back on the overall list one year later. Those included:

• Suits, reenergized by new episodes flowing to Netflix from Peacock, solidified the #2 spot with 1.5 billion viewing minutes.
• Hulu’s The Bear added a new season during the previous measurement week and drummed up 1.2 billion viewing minutes across all 28 episodes in this interval, notching #5 overall.
• The kid-favorite Bluey on Disney+ captured its 14th consecutive billion-minute week, landing at #8 overall with 1.09 billion minutes.
• Grey’s Anatomy on Hulu and Netflix was the 10th billion-minute title this week with a total of 1.02 billion viewing minutes.

Across the remaining five titles in the billions: House Of The Dragon on Max came in at #3 with 1.3 billion minutes (+24% from the previous. week). On Netflix and Paramount+, Bryan Cranston’s Your Honor captured the #4 spot with 1.23 billion minutes, and Dexter (which was recently added to Netflix) came in at #6 with 1.2 billion. Prime Video’s original series The Boys notched a fourth week with over a billion minutes (1.13B) to snag #7 overall. And at #9, the Netflix rom-com Family Affair starring Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman totaled 1.05 billion minutes this week.

Honorable mention this week goes to the Netflix original, Supacell, which generated 806 minutes (+46%) and would have cracked the overall Top 10 in virtually every other interval measured. It has broad appeal across adult viewers and was driven by a 75% multicultural audience, Nielsen reported.