By Haddon Libby
The average American spends eight hours each day consuming some form of media. This can be watching television, listening to music, playing a video game or reading a newspaper or magazine. Of this, the average American watches television for 3 hours and 17 minutes each day. 85% have at least one streaming service while 71% have cable television.
Amongst streaming services, Amazon’s Prime Video has the largest market share at 22% followed by Netflix at 21%, Max (formerly HBO Max) at 15%, Disney+ 12%, Hulu 11%, Paramount+ 8%, Apple+ 7% and all others 4%. Prime Video and Netflix are seeing market share growth at the expense of Disney+ and smaller services.
This month Netflix released a listing of the hours people viewed each of its programs for the first six months of 2023. Previously Netflix was more secretive about this information and would only share its top ten programs.
For the six months ending June 30th, Netflix was streamed by devices for 93,455,200,000 hours. With roughly 250 million subscribers globally, this means that the average device streamed the service for two hours daily. The United States and Canada represent 77 million or 31% of subscriptions with Latin America and the Asia/Pacific regions at 17% each with Europe, the Middle East and Africa at 34%. An estimated 700 million people watch Netflix through one of those 250 million subscriptions.
The Night Agent was the top streamed program for the first half of 2023 with 812.1 million hours viewed. As the program airs for approximately 55 minutes per episode and the series has ten episodes, this equates to nearly 1.5 million devices streaming the program start to finish. In truth, more than 1.5 million devices have streamed the show as people watch shows on streaming services according to their timelines. Some folks binge watch shows while others are more casual viewers. Streaming content contrasts with traditional network television where shows are usually viewed live at a preset time each day or week. As an example of this, the first season of The Blacklist was watched for 100 million hours and ranked as the 90th most watched program on Netflix.
Second season dramedy, Ginny & Georgia, came in second with 665 million hours. Renewed for a third and fourth season, this show follows a free-spirited mother, her 15-year-old daughter and 9 year-old son as they move to affluent town in Massachusetts after the death of her husband and their father.
The award-winning South Korean series, The Glory, came in third with 623 million hours. This show follows the victim of school violence who plots revenge against her bullies. To do this, she becomes a schoolteacher to the son of one of her attackers.
The story of Wednesday Addams of the Addams Family was released in November 2022 yet logged an impressive 507 million hours. Renewed for a second season, Tim Burton directed half of the eight episodes.
Released in May 2023, Shonda Rhymes’ Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story comes in fifth with 503 million hours. This miniseries is a prequal to Bridgerton.
The fourth season of You was watched for 440 million hours. Based on books by Caroline Kepnes, You is a psychological thriller that originally began on the Lifetime network in 2018. Netflix took over the series in 2020. The fifth and final season is set for release next year.
The third season of La Reina del Sur is seventh with 430 million hours. This Spanish-language telenovela had its first season in 2011 on Telemundo. Renewed as a joint effort of Netflix and Telemundo in 2019, the series follows the rise to power of a Mexican woman in southern Spain in the drug trade.
Rounding out the top ten is the third season of Outer Banks, the first season of Ginny & George and the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy, FUBAR.
Haddon Libby is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of RIA firm Winslow Drake Investment Management. For more information on our services, please visit www.WinslowDrake.com.
