Nielsen also crowns ‘Family Guy’ creator Seth MacFarlane as a “Streaming Icon” in its year-end tallies.
was far and away the most watched original series on any streaming platform in 2025. It was so big, in fact, that just the five weeks at the end of the year when its final season debuted led all others.
and its more than 450-episode library took second place with 40.92 billion minutes of viewing on Netflix and Hulu, andThe First Look at Long-Awaited 'KPop Demon Hunters' Toy Lines Is Finally Here Nielsen says U.S. viewers watched a staggering 16.7 trillion minutes of programming on streaming platforms last year, up 19 percent from 2024. That equates to 31.7. million years of linear time.final season debuted on Nov. 26, and in the last five full weeks of the year , the show recorded 25.1 billion viewing minutes — that by itself would have led all original shows for the year. The No. 2 original,was far and away the most streamed movie of 2025 with 20.55 billion minutes of viewing — more than double the total for the next most-watched film,. Nielsen broke down the movie rankings between kids films and “general interest” movies for the first time, withNielsen styles its year-end rankings as awards it calls the ARTEYs, both as a nod to founder Arthur C. Nielsen and an acronym for Audience Rated Television Entertainment of the Year. In that vein, it handed out a “Streaming Icon” honor to — amassed more than 60 billion minutes of watch time last year. “I want to thank Nielsen for this Streaming Icon Award,” MacFarlane said in a statement. It’s a high honor to receive the first prize in show business that isn’t determined by quality.”was the biggest new streaming series of the year with 11.4 billion minutes of viewing on HBO Max, putting it a little outside the top 10. Second among new original shows was Netflix’s murder mystery. The series, which ran from 1955-75, streams on Paramount+, Pluto TV and Peacock, and per Nielsen, its 22.5 billion minutes of watch time equates to 241 episodes per viewer.Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the GoogleThe Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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