'Outer Banks,' 'Murdaugh Murders' lead Netflix to top streaming ratings
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Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) is topping streaming ratings again with some genres proving to be steady successes: some adventure drama and true crime.
A new third season of Netflix's teen mystery Outer Banks topped Nielsen's most recent weekly streaming ratings (for Feb. 20-26), hitting a robust 3.154B minutes streamed during the interval despite releasing on Thursday of the week.
Nearly a third of that viewing went to the show's first two seasons, Nielsen said, showing that Netflix's originals are building strong legs for repeat viewing when they produce new seasons.
Meanwhile, Netflix (NFLX) has invested heavily in crime documentaries, and the second-most-streamed program for the week was its examination of a high-profile case from the headlines. Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal streamed 1.374B minutes, just enough to surpass HBO Max's (NASDAQ:WBD) top hit The Last of Us, which with seven episodes in the can streamed 1.187B minutes. (Again, the most recent episode only made up 22% of that total, showing heavy catch-up viewing for streaming hits.)
Those were followed on the Overall top programs chart by We Have a Ghost (NFLX), 930M minutes; CoComelon (NFLX), 884M minutes; New Amsterdam on Netflix (NFLX) and Peacock (NASDAQ:CMCSA), 850M minutes; NCIS (NFLX), 808M minutes; Perfect Match (NFLX), 805M minutes; You (NFLX), 797M minutes; and Bluey (NYSE:DIS), 789M minutes.
Despite streaming charts that are growing more diverse with more programming competition, the Original-series chart looked like the "olden days," with Netflix taking up nine of the top 10 - led by Outer Banks, Murdaugh Murders, Perfect Match, You, and Physical: 100 (429M minutes). Peacock (CMCSA) landed the only non-Netflix spot there, with Poker Face landing at No. 6 with 423M minutes.
Meanwhile, HBO Max (WBD) ruled the Acquired-series chart with The Last of Us, and also scored there with South Park (No. 6 on that chart with 704M minutes streamed) and The Big Bang Theory (No. 9 with 547M minutes).
And the Movies list has been a place for non-Netflix streamers like Disney to flex muscles, but Netflix (NFLX) showed up strong there as well, with the top three movies on the chart - We Have a Ghost, The Woman King (586M minutes) and 2 Guns (422M minutes) ahead of Disney+ with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (375M minutes). Peacock (CMCSA) also landed on the movie chart with horror hit M3GAN at No. 9 (237M minutes).
(Nielsen streaming ratings now incorporate viewing from seven major streamers: Amazon Prime Video (AMZN), Apple TV+ (AAPL), Disney+ (DIS), HBO Max (WBD), Hulu (DIS) (CMCSA), Netflix (NFLX) and Peacock (CMCSA).)