Netflix released its semi-annual data dump on Thursday, unveiling viewership for the streamer’s biggest hits — and not so big releases — from January through June of 2024.
While the most-watched seasons of TV during the six-month interval included “Fool Me Once,” “Bridgerton” Season 3, “Baby Reindeer” and “The Gentlemen,” a group of winners have arisen from the data dump, including children’s TV as a whole — including “Peppa Pig” — “Young Sheldon” and buzzy crime docs like “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal.”
As the streamer continues to bolster its live event programming, the success of “The Roast of Tom Brady” followed in the footsteps of “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage” as it found an eager audience, whereas the first-ever livestream of the SAG-AFTRA Awards earlier this year didn’t do much for Netflix, viewership-wise.
For the full breakdown of the biggest TV-centric revelations from Netflix’s data dump for the first half of 2024, see below.
“Peppa Pig” was a must-watch
Despite not being available on Netflix globally, “Peppa Pig” has seen major viewership on the streamer, with the animated series’ six seasons generating a total of 117.4 million views and 309 million hours — all ranking within the top 100 most-watched TV shows on the service from January to June.
Season 6 ranked 21st and generated 27.5 million views and 56 million total viewing hours, Season 3 ranked 38th and generated 20.6 million views and 41.9 million hours, Season 1 ranked 41st and generated 19.5 million views and 79.3 million hours, Season 4 ranked 44th and generated 19 million views and 39 million hours, Season 5 ranked 58th and generated 16.2 million views and 33.3 million viewing hours and Season 2 ranked 77th and generated 14.6 million views and 59.5 million viewing hours.
On the movie side, “Peppa Pig: My First Cinema Experience” generated 500,000 views and 600,000 viewing hours, while “Peppa Pig Festival of Fun” generated 100,000 views and hours, respectively.
Children’s TV thrived
Children’s television more broadly was a big winner for Netflix, with nine of its top 50 most-watched TV shows being aimed at younger audiences. In addition to the strong performance of “Peppa Pig” Seasons 6, 3, 1 and 4, “CoComelon Lane” Season 1 ranked 29th on the list with 23.9 million views and 93.6 million hours, while “Hot Wheels: Let’s Race” Season 1 ranked 33rd with 22.1 million views and 89.3 million hours.
The first seasons of “Bad Dinosaurs” and “CoComelon” generated 19.4 million views and 54.9 million hours and 18.7 million views and 55.4 million hours, respectively — ranking 42nd and 46th on the list. “Masha and the Bear” Season 5 finished out the top 50 with 17.4 million views and 56.9 million hours.
“Sex and the City” was not as big of a hit as people expected
Anticipation for the Darren Star-created series seemed to be high before “Sex and the City” came to Netflix in April, though it debuted to a lukewarm audience with just 2.5 million views in its first week on the streamer. Since its April debut, “Sex and the City” has tallied up 33.1 million views through June, with Season 1 scoring the biggest audience with 9.4 million views and Season 2 logging 6.2 million views. The third through sixth installments of the show reached a cumulative 17.5 million views.
Viewership for “Sex and the City” was just slightly outpaced by Seasons 1-7 of “Gilmore Girls,” which has lived on Netflix for the past decade, though viewership spiked for the first season of “Sex and the City” further than the 5.8 million views accrued by “Gilmore Girls” Season 1. With “Sex and the City” also streaming on Max, Netflix might not be the streamer of choice in this case.
“Young Sheldon” stayed strong
Another high-ranking title on Netflix without global availability is “Big Bang Theory” spinoff “Young Sheldon,” which was added to the platform last November. The series, which stars Iain Armitage as a younger version of Jim Parsons’ Sheldon Cooper, generated a total of 122.1 million views and 724.9 million hours.
Season 1 ranked 31st on the list with 23 million views and 166 million hours, followed by Season 2 in 48th with 18 million views and 128.8 million hours, Season 3 in 53rd with 16.8 million views and 113.9 million viewing hours, Season 4 in 55th with 16.3 million views and 90.3 million viewing hours, Season 5 in 61st with 15.9 million views and 113.4 million hours and Season 6 in 63rd with 15.8 million views and 112.5 million hours.
In addition to its strong performance in the first six months of the year, Young Sheldon topped Nielsen’s most-streamed titles in December with 6.7 billion viewing minutes and contributed to a 5.8% increase in Netflix viewing, according to the measurement firm.
“Baby Reindeer” outpaced the most anticipated releases
“Baby Reindeer” became the third most-watched show in the first half of the year, generating 87.6 million views and 347.6 million hours, surpassing the first seasons of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (71.1 million views and 515.5 million hours), “Griselda” (69.2 million views and 383 million hours) and “3 Body Problem” (52.4 million views and 388.1 million total hours). Following its global release, the show spent eight weeks in the Global Top 10 TV (English) and reached the Top 10 TV list in 92 countries.
The viewership update comes after the limited series took home six Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, with other Limited Series/Anthology wins including Outstanding Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, Writing, Casting and Picture Editing in the category.
Buzzy crime docs continued to hit
Crime docuseries continued to perform well for the streamer, with “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal” and “Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult” standing out as Netflix’s No. 37 and No. 39 most-watched seasons from January to June of this year, respectively. “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal” scored 20.8 million views while “Dancing for the Devil” tallied up 19.8 million views. “Homicide: New York,” which comes from “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf, drew 16.9 million views, making it the No. 52 most-watched season of 2024’s first half.
“The Roast of Tom Brady” solidifies Netflix’s live programming strategy
As Netflix continues to bolster its live event programming, the streamer is getting promising returns on its investment — viewership-wise, at least. “The Roast of Tom Brady” was certainly a hit with an impressive 22.4 million views, rivaling the opening weekend of “Emily in Paris” Season 4, which scored 19.9 million views for the first half of the new installment. As Netflix hosted a livestream of the SAG-AFTRA Awards for the first time, the 30th annual ceremony scored 1.8 million views, which failed to crack into Netflix’s most-watched TV programs for its debut week.
While viewership information for Joe Rogan’s “Burn the Boats” and Matt Rife’s crowdwork live specials, both of which debuted in August, will be released in the next data dump for the latter half of 2024, it appears that these live comedies might be the way forward for Netflix’s live strategy — especially given the smash success of Christ Rock’s “Selective Outrage” special last year.
