Advanced Television

Report: TV premieres of US content drop in 2024

January 23, 2025

Luminate, the entertainment industry’s data partner, has unveiled its 2024 Year-End Film & TV Report. The report delivers insights surrounding the volume of TV and film content being produced in the US. This year’s report also includes streaming viewership metrics from the company’s Streaming Viewership (M) tool, along with consumer behaviour data from Luminate’s Insights audience research.

Alongside the report’s release, Luminate revealed its acquisition of Variety VIP+, which provides in-depth entertainment industry insights and analyses. Currently housed on Variety’s digital platform, the service will make its move to Luminate’s platform later this year.

Key insights from the report include the following:
TV Contraction Continues, But Reduction Slows

The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes had a significant impact on 2024 TV content, resulting in production falling even further from its peak TV heights, albeit at a slower rate. Last year saw a 7 per cent drop in US -produced TV premieres from 2023 (versus the prior year’s 17 per cent drop from 2022). Contractions at cable networks and SVoD platforms drove the decline, even though broadcast made a surprising comeback.

US-produced shows at Netflix added to this reduction, 22 per cent lower in 2024 from 2022 levels. Still, Netflix production remains far ahead of the seven other major streaming platforms, all of which — except for Prime Video — have reduced output from their respective peaks.

Despite unscripted TV production continuing during the strikes, the format still saw a steep drop-off in output in 2024. US-produced unscripted premieres dropped more than 8 per cent YoY, versus a mere 2 per cent dip for scripted series (across broadcast, cable and SVoD). This was largely fueled by the ongoing cable contraction: Unscripted cable premieres fell 15 per cent versus 2023. Unscripted output was down at broadcast networks, too, with an 8 per cent decline, though the format saw a 9 per cent increase on SVoD platforms.

One area of growth was US broadcast TV output, which actually increased nearly 25 per cent YoY from 2023, though this was also due to the strikes pushing season premieres from autumn 2023 to early 2024.


Franchise Fatigue?

While franchises continue to be key drivers of engagement on streaming, 2024 saw diminishing returns for some of the biggest properties on television. Both 2024 live-action Marvel TV series, Echo and Agatha All Along, underperformed in viewership compared to 2023 Marvel series Loki Season 2 and Secret Invasion.
Despite being the second-biggest original on Disney+, Star Wars series The Acolyte was cancelled by Disney and Lucasfilm shortly after its first-season finale, as viewership for the show had waned significantly after the first two episodes. And Star Wars: Skeleton Crew hasn’t fared much better. With only one live-action Star Wars series set for 2025 (Andor Season 2), Disney can retool its strategy for the franchise’s dwindling success.
Intellectual property that can bring in a fan base from other media doesn’t hurt. Percy Jackson and the Olympians, a late-2023 release, had the most minutes watched for a streaming original on Disney+ in 2024. It’s a known IP based on beloved novels, but the only screen adaptations are two films from 2010 and 2013, and the franchise had never been given an author-approved faithful adaptation. Outside of Disney+, dystopian video game adaptation Fallout was a big hit for Prime Video, whereas the streamer’s Reacher and Cross delivered a different kind of familiar format: literary-adaptation detective-mystery dramas.

Streaming Viewership Takeaways

What may be most notable about the differences between genre compositions at the leading streaming services is there isn’t much difference at all: They all lead with drama, have identical levels of crime-themed programming and are somewhat underrepresented on comedy. If there’s one streamer that stands out from the pack, it might be Disney+, the only market entrant to register in double digits with science fiction.
Rank
Title Name
Minutes Watched (Billions)
Season
Platform
Release Date
1
Fool Me Once
12.11
1
Netflix
1/1/24
2
Bridgerton
11.07
3
Netflix
5/16/24
3
Landman
9.90
1
Paramount+
11/17/24
4
The Perfect Couple
8.83
1
Netflix
9/5/24
5
Tulsa King
8.47
2
Paramount+
9/15/24
6
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
8.16
1
Netflix
9/19/24
7
The Gentlemen
8.06
1
Netflix
3/7/24
8
Fallout
7.95
1
Prime Video
4/10/24
9
Griselda
7.59
1
Netflix
1/25/24
10
Love Is Blind
7.38
6
Netflix
2/14/24

When it comes to the most viewed streaming series of 2024:
  • As expected, Netflix dominates with 7 of the top 10 titles.
  • Fool Me Once, the British series based on a Harlan Coben mystery novel, opened huge at the start of the year and ran well through February. It continues to have strong viewership, logging 24 million-58 million minutes watched per week in the last two months.
  • Never underestimate Yellowstone franchise creator Taylor Sheridan. Landman is the third-biggest show of 2024, and that’s only with the eight episodes released in 2024 (two more episodes released in 2025, but no 2025 data is counted toward this ranking.)
  • Another Sheridan hit, Tulsa King Season 2 is actually slightly below the tracking for its first season, but it is still posting fantastic viewership, also impressive for its inclusion on this list with a fall release.
  • Fallout is Prime Video’s hit of the year, which is a bit of a surprise, as The Rings of Power would have been expected to make a year-end top 10, but viewership for the Lord of the Rings prequel didn’t live up to the expectations set by the first season.
  • Squid Game Season 2 is already trending to be a huge title, with similar viewership to the first two weeks of Fool Me Once, but its December 26th release positions it too late to make a year-end list.

Top 10 US Streaming Movies for 2024

Rank
Title Name
Minutes Watched (Billions)
Primary SVOD Platform
Release Date
1
Moana
                                       9.36
Disney+
11/16/16
2
Oppenheimer
                                       6.85
Peacock/Prime Video
7/19/23
3
Trolls Band Together
                                       6.16
Netflix
10/12/23
4
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
                                       5.36
Peacock/Netflix
4/5/23
5
Carry-On
                                       5.14
Netflix
12/13/24
6
The Equalizer 3
                                       4.78
Netflix
8/30/23
7
Minions
                                       4.63
Netflix
1/1/15
8
Cars
                                       4.54
Disney+
6/8/06
9
Inside Out 2
                                       4.51
Disney+
6/12/24
10
Encanto
                                       4.45
Disney+
12/24/21
  • Licensed titles beat out streaming originals.
  • Moana absolutely dominated on streaming, so it’s no surprise its sequel overperformed at the box office in November. Moana was significantly higher than Oppenheimer, which brings the advantage of its three-hour runtime to the minutes-watched metric.
  • That said, Oppenheimer’s performance is still significant. Unlike Moana, this isn’t a title that engenders multiple rewatches in a day or viewing multiple days in a row. While the Best Picture winner had solid viewership when it moved to Prime Video over the summer, its biggest days of streaming viewership were right after the title was made available on Peacock in February.
  • This indicates Oppenheimer drove some significant subscription revenue for Peacock in that period, as well as holding onto viewers who might have added a Peacock subscription when it exclusively aired an NFL Wild Card game a month prior.
  • Carry-On is the only streaming original title on this list, which is impressive considering its December release. This shows Netflix can dominate with both streaming original titles and licensed films.
  • Prime Video’s Road House just missed the mark, sitting at #11.

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