Media Ratings: Anomalies, Assertions, and Oddest Metric Formulations of 2025

Context: Production Year over Year

From The Hollywood Reporter, 2025-01-22.

Total Series, Episodes, Hours

Total Premiers per Platform

Context: Streaming, Broadcast, Cable, Other

From The Hollywood Reporter, 2025-07-15. Streaming 46%, Broadcast 18.5%, Cable 23.4%, other 12.1%.

Context: USA ratings from Nielsen

• Top Shows 2024-25, THR

Context: Global Audience by Region from Netflix

From Netflix Q2 2025 Earnings Report via THR

Methodology

• Netflix “monthly active viewers” circa THR, 2025-11-05. Defined as a viewership metric for its ad supported subscriptions, claims 190M MAV in the “12 countries where it offers and ad tier.” MAV is defined as the number of users who have watched at least one minute of ad-supported programming multiplied by the average number of people in a household.
• Amazon claims 315M “unduplicated monthly views” worldwide on ad-tier content from Amazon Prime Video. “Amazon said the count was based on its own internal data over a period of 12 months, from September of last year through August of this year.”  Was 200M in April 2024. Variety 2025-11-11

 

Specific Media Objects, Relations

• Last of Us 2
  • Last of Us S2 Ratings Declined. (THR 2025-06-13). Started higher, S02E0[4-5] lowest of S01-S02, S02 82% of S01. S02E0[1-5] == 805, 937, 827, 738, 745. Interesting transmedia commentary as rating decline was similar to game title sales. The five week interval suggests backing data is Nielsen.
• White Lotus 3
  • Last episode new record high for same-day, 1-day. 4.8M for S03E07, 6.2M for S03E08.  (THR 2025-04-07)
  • Audience grew each week, finale had 6.2M, 51% higher than the Season 2 finale and more than twice the viewership for the season premiere. LAT, 2025-06-01
• Squid Game 2.
  • Becomes Netflix’s Third Most Watched Season Ever (Variety, 2025-01-14). Over 4 days from premier “68 million views” (from Dec 26-30). Over 11 days from premier, “126.2 million views,” more than “any Netflix series has ever achieved in that amount of time.” Squid Game 01 (265M) and Wednesday (252M) top it.
  • “Second straight huge week… just under 4.6 billion minutes of viewing in the USA for week of Dec 30-Jan 5, fell by less than 7% w-o-w as first week was 4.92 billion minutes” (THR, 2025-01-30).
  • Season 2 “most watched series worldwide in H2 2024 in a short six  day run) Netflix vew metric (86.5M “viewing hours/running time” and total viewing time (619M hours)). (THR, 2025-02-26)
• Rings of Power, Echo, Agatha, Acolyte.
  • (Deadline, 2025-01-22). Rings of Power S02 60% of S01. Echo and Agatha “under performed previous Marvel streaming series. Percy Jackson and the Olympians was top dog on Disney+ last year with over 3B minutes viewed, and the Acolyte came in seond place with 2.7B.” Figures from Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Film & TV Report.
• Severance 2, The Night Agent
  • Severance season two one of “Apple TV+s most watched series to date.” THR 2025-02-27. Ranks 4th in all streamers Jan 27-Feb 2 Nielsen, 557 “million minutes of viewing. Down from 622 MM week 1, 589 MM week 2. Night Agent is first for “second straigt week” with “2.92 B minutes of viewing on Netflix” a “scane” 6% drop from week 1.
  • Severance has outperformed almost all of Apple’s marquee releases from the past two years, with the final season of “lasso” being the lone exception. Apple TV+ Viewership is Surging. Is it the ‘Severance’ Halo Effect? Variety, 2025-02-28
  • The Night Agent Scores Third Striaght Week at No. 1, THR, 2025-03-06. “1.52 B minutes of viewing time Feb 3-9, off 48% from previous week.” For Original Series, Severance is #4 (.582 B minutes), #7 is Squid Game (.43B), #8 is Invincible (.419B)
• South Park S27
  • Season 27 premiere lands big audience. THR 2025-07-30.
  • Second episode record ratings. THR, 2025-08-13. Season premiere delivered “6 million cross-platform views and had the show’s biggest share in 25 years.” The second episode live viewing jumped 25% from the premiere.
• Wednesday
  • Second-largest weekly total of 2025 for part 1, with 3.75 billion “minutes of viewing” for the week of Aug 4-10, behind only Squid Game 2.  THR 2025-09-04
  • Wednesday stays on top. THR, 2025-09-11.
  • Wednesday Season 2 enters list of all-time most-popular english-language titles during the second week of 2.2’s availability. S01 is #1 with 94.5M views so far. Calculated as: weekly totals until 91 days after premiere, or 91 days after the final episodes are released. Variety, 2025-09-16.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle

  • Crunchyroll Boss on the Blockbuster Implications, THR, 2025-09-22

• Stranger Things 5
  • ST5.2 34.5M, helps Netflix to best Christmas ev-a. Variety. 2025-12-31.