Eddie Murphy’s New Christmas Movie Leads Streaming Top 10 | Charts

The holiday season is in full swing when it comes to television viewing behaviors, as both streaming and linear charts saw their holiday programming top the charts, according to the Samba TV Weekly Wrap Report for the week of Nov. 27 to Dec. 3. The annual “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” tree lighting in New York City, televised by NBC, delivered a big win for broadcast television, while Amazon’s Prime Video original film “Candy Cane Lane” scored the number one spot in streaming.

Audiences are clearly embracing the holiday season on linear television. This year’s Christmas special on NBC hosted by Kelly Clarkson featured performances and appearances by stars including Cher, David Foster, Seth MacFarlane, Barry Manilow, Katharine McPhee, Keke Palmer, Carly Pearce and more. Not far behind at the No. 6 telecast on broadcast TV was “Christmas at Graceland” hosted by and produced by Riley Keough, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter.

Meanwhile, Amazon is giving Christmas-movie fanatics an early gift this season with the release of a holiday original film to kick off December. “Candy Cane Lane,” the Eddie Murphy-led Christmas film, generated a sizable audience for Prime Video, making its opening weekend available to stream. The representation from Murphy and a leading Black cast likely helped contribute to diverse households tuning in, as Black households over-indexed by 46%.

Netflix also saw two of its own original Christmas programs notch spots among the top 10 this week. Starring Jennifer Garner, “Family Switch” generated a big audience and came at No. 3, while “The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday,” the animated special based on the 2022 film, landed at No. 9.

For the second consecutive week, “Squid Game: The Challenge” earned the top spot in streaming for Netflix at No. 2, while the Adam Sandler’s children film “Leo” fell to fourth. As the fifth season of Netflix’s “Virgin River” came to a close, over 850,000 households tuned into the finale during its first four days available to watch and landed the program in a strong fifth position. The finale trailed the premiere by 35% and viewership tended to skew older, over-indexing by 13% compared to the average household.

“Lawmen: Bass Reeves” gave Paramount+ another week on the charts at No. 6, followed by “A Nearly Normal Family” and “Obliterated,” both airing on Netflix. Meanwhile, “The Great British Baking Show” rounded out the 10th spot, fueled by the season finale.

On broadcast TV, the finale of “The Golden Bachelor” scored No. 3 for ABC as Gerry Turner proposed to contestant Theresa Nist. Two airings of “The Voice” gave NBC an edge at No. 2 and No. 4. The semifinals of “Dancing with the Stars” garnered the fifth most-watched telecast this week. Airings of “Yellowstone” (No. 7) and “Survivor” (No. 9) gave CBS two programs in the top 10. Finally, FOX also secured two programs on the leaderboard this week, with new animated comedy “Krapopolis” at No. 8 and “Hell’s Kitchen,” with Chef Gordon Ramsay and Chef Jason Santos, at No. 10.

Cole Strain is VP and Head of R&D at Samba TV, a WrapPRO partner. Click here for more data and analysis from Samba TV.

The Wrap Report provides an exclusive first look at the most watched movies and TV series from the past week across both streaming and linear television sourced from viewership trends collected from Samba TV’s panel of more than 3 million households drawn from over 25 million connected TVs, balanced to the U.S. Census.

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