It’s no secret that Netflix has the power to turn licensed titles into trend shows. From the annual fall rewatch of “Gilmore Girls” to “Suits” Frenzy, it sparked a revival of legal dramas, leading to the NBC Greenlighting Spinoff series “Suits LA.”
In Nielsen’s latest report, the measurement service graphs Netflix Effect, which can be seen on shows such as Suits and Lucifer. The data also highlights CBS Firefighter’s drama “Fire Country” and CW’s teenage drama “Riverdale.”
“By enhancing the effectiveness of people discovering shows and movies on Netflix, they loved and forgot, or because it’s new to them and they’ve never seen it before, and so it’s the most dispersed service in the country where they first discovered it.” “It’s grown beyond Netflix itself and now means how programming is played in the current ecosystem.”
Nielsen
“Suit” had 51.1 billion viewing hours for the first eight seasons on the USA network from 2011 to 2019, but Nielsen’s data shows have 13% ahead of streaming viewers during the “Suit” frenzy, with the show cutting 57.7 billion viewing amounts and watching Peacock from June to December 2023.
“Lucifer” saw a similar new life. Very literally when the streamer revives the series for three seasons after the cancellation at Fox. The first two seasons reached 7 billion viewing hours and Season 3 reached 8.4 billion viewing hours on Fox, but Season 1 reached 8.4 billion viewing minutes on Netflix, and Season 2 and 3 reached 960 million and 1.06 billion viewing hours, respectively.
Similarly, “Riverdale” averaged 1.4 billion minutes of views on the CW during its first season, but Netflix’s debut reached 2.1 billion viewing hours in the first 13 episodes of the second season between freshman and sophomore installations. And “Fire Country” grew to 54.75% between seasons 2 and 3, and saw the viewership spike in its first season that went on to Netflix.
Nielsen
“Even though it was just the first season on Netflix, it actually helped to boost the third season of the Paramount+ viewing,” Hughes said, “about the impact on Netflix Effect’s “Fire Country.” “This interesting interaction between shows that start linearly and can move to different locations of streaming and how all these different locations interact.”
Hughes couldn’t talk about whether there is a financial incentive for licensed shows that benefit from this “Netflix effect,” but he said “being able to point out solid viewing numbers is an asset in all sorts of negotiations.” He focused on how Netflix’s “Suits” influence led NBCUniversal to approach creator Aaron Kolsch and create the NBC spinoff series “Suits LA.”
However, it remains difficult to predict which shows could benefit from “Netflix effects.” Hughes pointed to powerful streaming figures of dramas that have not moved to Netflix, from Apple TV+’s “Retirement” to Hulu’s “Paradise” to Paramount+’s “1923.”
“Everything has potential,” Hughes said. “I think it’s a question of how cross-ecosystem travel happens over time.”
“Adolescence” continues to grow
After “Adolescence” became Netflix’s most watched limited series in its first two weeks on streamers, the British crime drama has appeared on everyone, everyone, Netflix’s most watched TV series with a whopping 96.7 million views in the first three weeks.
“Adolescence” is currently in ninth place ahead of “Stranger Things 3.” “Stranger Things 3” is ranked 10th with 94.8 million views since its debut in 2019, and is behind “Bawl Me and” and “The Night Agent” season 1, which currently has 98.2 million views.
CBS offers a solid, multi-platform audience
Nielsen Live-Plus-35 Day viewer figures show that CBS currently airs now has over 10 million viewers on both CBS and Paramount+. The championship premiere episode after “Watsons” attracted 18.7 million viewers with over a month of viewers, with “Tracker” and “Matt Rock” retaining their status as the season’s network’s crown jewels with 18 and 15.8 million viewers respectively.
The freshman comedy “Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage” came next with a viewer of 12.7 million, while “Elsbeth” averaged 10.9 million viewers and “Ghost” averaged 10.8 million viewers. Fire Country has an average viewership of 10.5 million, FBI has an average of 10.4 million viewers, NCIS has an average of 10.4 million viewers and Blue Bloods in December, closing the pack with an average of 10 million viewers.
Jason Ritter, Kathy Bates, Sky P. Marshall “Matlock” (Sonja Flemming/CBS)
Fox News breaks quarterly records
Fox News benefited from Donald Trump’s return to office. The right-footed network won the highest quarter in cable news history in terms of weekday viewership ratings.
According to Nielsen, in the first quarter of 2025, the network averaged 22 million viewers, slightly surpassing previous quarterly records set by Fox News, which averaged 2.17 million weekday viewers in the second quarter of 2020.
Nielsen’s post shows how Netflix brought new life to “suits” and “firecountry.”
