Netflix’s ‘Harry & Meghan’ Dethrones ‘Wednesday’ for Top Streaming Show | Charts
It took a prince to dethrone Netflix’s “Wednesday” in the latest edition of Samba TV’s Weekly Wrap report, providing an exclusive first look at the most-watched movies and individual TV programs from the past week across both linear television and streaming, according to data collected from a panel of more than 3 million households drawn from over 25 million connected TVs balanced to the U.S. Census.
Netflix swept the top 10 rankings this week with its “Harry & Meghan” docuseries claiming the top three spots on the list, followed by “Wednesday,” which notched all of the remaining seven slots, demonstrating the incredible staying power of the Tim Burton-helmed Addams Family spin off. The first episode of “Wednesday” was the most-viewed episode of the series this week, illustrating the ongoing strength and buzz the show continues to generate, attracting new audiences several weeks after its initial launch.
While “Wednesday” remained a strong performer, the big story from the week remains the royal rumble that has emerged from the debut of “Harry & Meghan.” Since the project was first announced, anticipation both in the U.S. and abroad has been building for the series, and initial viewership of the premiere was impressive, with 2.1 million U.S. households tuning in to episode one within its first four days of streaming. While there is heightened interest in the younger generation of royals and their strained relationship with Buckingham Palace with the premiere of “Harry & Meghan” quickly doubling the viewership in the U.S. of the season 5 premiere of the “The Crown,” it remains to be seen if the program has staying power. Early numbers had appeared to show interest may be waning, with viewership of the third episode shedding a third of the audience of the series premiere.
While Netflix boxed out all other competitors in the war for streaming attention this week, the picture on the linear TV front remains a bit more diverse with Paramount Network mega-hit “Yellowstone” showing its staying power atop the charts. The Taylor Sheridan-led “Yellowstone” nabbed the top spot for the most-watched linear program of the week, followed by a blitz from broadcast networks NBC and CBS rounding out the top 10. NBC’s “The Voice” finale captured three of the top 10 spots on broadcast television, followed by perennial fan favorite franchises CBS’ “NCIS” and NBC’s “One Chicago” (the “Med” and “Fire” editions each claiming a top 10 spot). CBS’ “The Neighborhood” was the only comedy to crack the hold of reality programming and procedural dramas as the 10th most-watched linear program for the week.
“Yellowstone’s” top ranking is all the more impressive when you consider the program which airs on cable channel Paramount Network (with concurrent airings on TV Land, CMT and Pop), outpaced heavyweights from the broadcast networks that are much more widely-available in millions of more homes nationwide. ABC was notably missing entirely from the linear lineup top 10 this week, but once again David Muir and team scored the top spot among the evening news programs for total weekly viewership.
Over the past month, U.S. households have also been increasingly turning to holiday programming as we close in on Christmas. Between Nov. 8 and Dec. 11, American households overwhelmingly tuned into the Christmas classics over new streaming releases, while Netflix was the only streamer to break into the top tier of movies with new original programming.
The analysis of holiday movie watching found American households are eager to re-watch the classic holiday staples. The most-watched movie in the lead-up to Christmas was the 80s classic, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” viewed by 8.6 million U.S. households. “Home Alone” followed closely behind, with 8.4 million households, and Will Ferrel’s “Elf” nabbed 7.9 million households. By comparison, just two new streaming holiday movies (“Falling for Christmas” starring Lindsey Lohan and “The Noel Diary” starring Justin Hartley — both on Netflix), surpassed 2.5 million households within the same time period and cracked into the top 10 most-watched films.
Millennials tended to over-index in their preference for the new holiday movies released this year while older viewers tended to favor the tried and true classics. The continued growth of streaming and the numerous distribution channels it provides for classic programming is one of the main drivers of an overall strong growth in holiday programming this year with viewership for the top holiday movies increasing 13% year over year.
Notably, households in colder weather climates such as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Boston were eager for holiday cheer and over-indexed on nearly every holiday movie, whereas warmer regions such as Dallas, Los Angeles and Tampa were feeling a little less jolly for holiday movie marathons in the run-up to Christmas.
Dallas Lawrence is the SVP and head of communications and brand at Samba TV, a WrapPRO partner. For more from Samba TV, click here.
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