2021’s Most Streamed Series: Lucifer, Criminal Minds Top Nielsen Lists, But…
Netflix’s own Lucifer and its acquired Criminal Minds library topped Nielsen’s rankings of the most streamed series of 2021, in terms of total minutes viewed — though drilling down into the numbers can spin an alternate story.
Lucifer placed No. 1 on Nielsen’s U.S. ranking of streaming originals, amassing 18.3 billion minutes viewed across its complete library of 93 episodes. Coming in second was Netflix’s Squid Game (16.4 billion/9 episodes), followed by Netflix’s The Great British Baking Show (with 13.6 million/75 episodes), Netflix’s Virgin River (12.9 billion/30 episodes), and Netflix’s Bridgerton (12.4 billion/8 episodes).
(Rounding out the Top 10 original series were YOU, Cobra Kai, The Crown, Longmire and The Handmaid’s Tale.)
But as you can see from the episode counts above, an argument could be made that Squid Game and Bridgerton were the most voraciously consumed series, if you look at total minutes per episode — each averaged more than 1.5 billion, compared to Lucifer‘s 200 million.
Among non-Netflix fare, Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale placed highest, at No. 10 with 8.6 billion minutes/46 available episodes — though going by minutes/episode, Disney+’s WandaVision performed strongest (averaging 800 million).
Turning to acquired series (that originated elsewhere but landed on a streaming service), Criminal Minds was No. 1 with 33.9 billion minutes across its complete library of 322 episodes, followed by Cocomelon (33.3 billion/15 episodes), Grey’s Anatomy (32.6 billion/382 available episodes) and NCIS (29.5 billion/354 available episodes). But again, looking at minutes/episode, Cocomelon far and away performed best, averaging more than 2.2 billion, followed by Netflix-bound Manifest‘s 500 million.
Nielsen’s end-of-2021 report also ranked the most viewed movies, and Disney+’s Luca led the pack with 10.6 billion minutes viewed, followed by another three from Disney+: Moana (8.9 billion), Raya and the Last Dragon (8.3 billion) and Frozen II (5.8 billion). More adult fare rounded out the Top 5, in the form of Netflixs Red Notice (which garnered 5.5 billion minutes). There’s surely a revised chart to be made here based on running time for each, but I will leave those numbers for a movie site to crunch!
Due to a Nielsen error, a previous version of this story reported slightly different episode counts and minutes viewed for some series.
Want scoop on any of the above shows? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.
Here’s why Grey’s Anatomy will make it to season 20. it’s the third most watched series in the world. Giving it a proper 20th season, with all the final season fanfarre and a good ending will ensure it will continue to stream well for many years, like the Office and Friends did.
It’s interesting to see how media reporting sites are dealing with the major shifts in the present landscape of multi-platform/device viewing to reflect on which shows are /continue to be a “success”. Now,more than ever, the 3 Cs rule–cross-reference,cross-reference,cross-reference! instead of relying on a single source.
Criminal Minds ended on episode 324, where is everyone getting the number 332? Does this include beyond borders, suspect behavior? Can’t, because then it’d have more than just 8 extra episodes.
I’m confused.
IMDB says it’s 323. I think they just transposed the last two numbers.
The supplied Nielsen spreadsheet contained errors; the data above has been updated.
Keep in mind Netflix doesn’t have ALL the seasons on CRIMINAL MINDS or NCIS (But neither does a couple of the cable channels running them,) so these figures are interesting…
again it’s because cbs now has there own streaming service and the reason why a show like blacklist has every epusode on netflix, is before there multi million dollar deal with sony pictures, netflix had a mutlti million dollar deal to accquire the streaming rights for the blacklist as it was a big hit for nbc, although it looks like numbers for the blacklist are great as it’s last 3 weeks have been better then all of season 8 and even though it’s moving back to friday when it returns, it doesn’t have to deal with swat but undercover boss on cbs
Any one information about the 16th season of Criminal Minds… it’s order last year in February!!!
It’s a bit misleading to say series that launched new episodes – like Lucifer averaged that number across the entire library. I’m pretty certain the new seasons represent the bulk of those streams.
Agree. Its all a bit misleading if you dint see per season numbers too
I definitely miss Lucifer. It was alot of fun!! Glad Netflix picked it up.
I love the show lucifer
Phyllis
I just want to say I miss Lauren German. 🥺❤️That’s all. As you were…
Not how this should have been analysed. Should have been per total minutes of content available to get viewership not per episode. 20 min episodes vs 50min episodes show how flawed that is to compare