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Television

Americans Are Watching Fewer New TV Shows and More Free TV (bloomberg.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the reruns-are-better dept.
Americans are settling into streaming habits that should worry Hollywood executives, as new Nielsen data analyzed by Bloomberg reveals that not a single new original series cracked the top 10 most-watched streaming shows in 2025 -- the first time this has happened since Nielsen began publishing streaming data in 2020.

The shift extends beyond original programming as free, ad-supported streaming services are growing faster than their paid counterparts. YouTube has become the most-watched streaming service on American televisions, now larger than Netflix and Amazon combined. The Roku Channel and Tubi have nearly doubled in size over the past two years, while Peacock and Warner Bros.' streaming services have stagnated at roughly half their free competitors' viewership share.

Netflix still dominates when it comes to hits, accounting for about two-thirds of original programs appearing in Nielsen's weekly top 10 lists. But that dominance is eroding -- the company's share of streaming viewership has fallen below 20%. Meanwhile, Disney's streaming services haven't increased their share of TV viewing in three years, and Amazon is closing in. The most-watched original series of 2025 was Squid Game's final season, followed by returning shows Wednesday and Love Island.

Americans Are Watching Fewer New TV Shows and More Free TV More | Reply

Americans Are Watching Fewer New TV Shows and More Free TV

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  • Whatever happened to all the good stories/scripts? I think Andor was the last show I watched that had a plot. The average show might as well be written by AI.

    • Re:QUality of writing really bad (Score:5, Interesting)

      by caseih ( 160668 ) on Monday December 29, 2025 @02:47PM (#65888627)

      And the quality of sound production. Lines are mumbled, music and effects drown out the dialog. This is all in the name of "realism." Been watching an old sitcom lately (started in the 70s) and one of the main characters speaks very loudly. That's what actors were trained to on the stage, and it actually works well on the screen with clear dialog. Sure it technically sounds unnatural compared to every day speech, but on the screen it works.

      • Been watching an old sitcom lately (started in the 70s) and one of the main characters speaks very loudly.

        You said sitcom, but Quincy M.D. fits that comment as well. Except when Klugman was delivering a point about something or discussing something unusual, he always spoke loudly, compared to what we have today.

        Also, many people got their start and went to do other shows after appearing on the show. Look at who was in the first episode. If you don't recognize their names you will definitely reco

        • Quincy was a bit before my time but I've watched a number of episodes. There's something a bit off putting about Klugman yelling about blood and semen in every episode.

      • I feel like that's a side effect of sound recording tech just really starting to improve in the 1970s. A lot of old film looks absolutely fantastic since you have amazing lenses and film still but is dated by the sound recording which you can just tell either has that signature background hiss or as mentioned, the actors really amplify their voices to get clear lines (or it can be obvious that it's ADR)

        Now that audio can be captured on 40 ambient mics around the set, isolated and digitally manipulated by i

    • Whatever happened to all the good stories/scripts?

      In the past few years my wife and I have enjoyed Pluribus, Landman, A Man on the Inside, The Chair Company, Murderbot, all of which have very original scripts. Chad Powers was amusing. The Bear has its ups and downs. Severance was good. I've heard The White Lotus is pretty good but I haven't watched it yet. The problem is a lot of these are scattered on different platforms or you'll find a lot of good content on Apple TV but burn through it within a few months.

      I've noticed that Amazon Prime Video is gett

      • Whatever happened to all the good stories/scripts?

        In the past few years my wife and I have enjoyed Pluribus, Landman, A Man on the Inside, The Chair Company, Murderbot, all of which have very original scripts. Chad Powers was amusing. The Bear has its ups and downs. Severance was good. I've heard The White Lotus is pretty good but I haven't watched it yet. The problem is a lot of these are scattered on different platforms or you'll find a lot of good content on Apple TV but burn through it within a few months.

        Murderbot is a book series, so not really a "very original script." The Bear is essentially a restaurant worker's nervous breakdown masquerading as a dramady.

        I've noticed that Amazon Prime Video is getting a lot of decent shows after they've done their rotation on their flagship network.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The Bear is essentially a restaurant worker's nervous breakdown masquerading as a dramady.

          and lord of the rings is about a guy trying to return a piece of jewelry to it's owner. citizen kane is about a guy who starts a business and decides to run for president.

          we can make any story stupid if we break it down that far

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sinij ( 911942 )

            and lord of the rings is about a guy trying to return a piece of jewelry to it's owner.

            C'mon, no spoilers.

      • Dept Q was rather good. I watched the first two episodes of the first season of White Lotus and don't understand the show. Everyone is terrible and I don't care what happens to any of the characters. Jennifer Coolidge was the most annoying of all. Mike Judge did a surprisingly good animated show called Common Side Effects.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They're out there. You just aren't watching them because propaganda is telling you everything is bad. You could do something really crazy, like watch an episode and decide for yourself.

    • Good storytelling is going away. The reason? Portable telephones. People interact very differently these days. A lot of communication is via text, photos, short videos. The art of conversation suffers and with it the art of storytelling. As the generation who grew up with this grows older and becomes the generation writing new stories/scripts, the dialog becomes more trite, more forced and unnatural. Market forces too are causing problems. It is more profitable to have short videos than 30+ minute episodes.

  • Series from when I was young(er): they're usually easy to find for download, and they're just as good as new stuff. And I found the funny stuff of the past funnier, but maybe I'm biased because of age. Probably actually...

    Also - at least in the case of American series - it depicts an America that no longer exists, and it feels good to see it again.

  • Love Island?!? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by plstubblefield ( 999355 ) on Monday December 29, 2025 @02:42PM (#65888617)

    Love Island was the third-most watched "original" series?!? That right there is the most damning commentary on the decline of our society...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      People watching reality TV trash isn't exactly new, remember how big Jersey Shore was? Or Survivor?

  • New series, blah. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Monday December 29, 2025 @02:43PM (#65888619)

    New series: six to eight episodes in a "season". Six to eight episodes that could have easily been condensed to one or two instead of dragging them out to the point of boring. The writing absolutely sucks, period. No guarantee that if you do find a good new series it will last to the next season ... why invest the time now ... wait a few years to see if at least a few seasons were made and another is planned. A "season" used to mean yearly, now it can mean 2 to 3 years later.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      Yeah... we went from our favorite Sci-Fi series getting 25 episode season runs on network TV that you could watch with an antenna to 8 episode runs behind a premium streaming subscription paywall for $15 a month.

      I'm not sure why the networks are stunned that people aren't subscribing to watch them, especially when there are 6 major competing streaming services with their own unique Sci-Fi content. If anything, I'm stunned that people have put up with this garbage for as long as they have.

      • our favorite Sci-Fi series getting 25 episode season runs

        Sir, I am dubious that you have actually traveled from the past to share your experience.

        More like 14 episodes, randomly shifted around to accommodate sportsball running long, sometimes shown in the WRONG ORDER because nobody could be bothered to care about spaceships and robots. That's what I recall about televised scientifiction in my youth.

        • Allow me to bring up exhibit A Star Trek The Original Series Episodes [wikipedia.org]. 29 fucking episodes in season 1 alone, for example. And you only had to wait until next fall for a new season to start. I believe that is what the grand-parent poster was referring to.

          Nowadays, you get a cheap 10 episodes then have to wait 2 to 3 years later (especially fucking Apple+ for Severence, Pluribus, Silo, etc). It's a ripoff.

          • The older Star Trek series (TOS, TNG, Voyager, DS9, Enterprise) had 24-26 episodes per season. There were a few exceptions like Voyager season 1 had only 16, and TOS season 1 had 29 (like you said), and Enterprise season 4 had only 22, but for the most part "Star Trek" was 24-26 episodes per season that were "hour length" (ok, really 42-46 minutes but on broadcast TV they were an hour). I suspect that was a bit of a grind for the actors, but I appreciated it. :)

            I'm slowly working my way thru Picard, which h

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Yeah... we went from our favorite Sci-Fi series getting 25 episode season runs on network TV that you could watch with an antenna to 8 episode runs behind a premium streaming subscription paywall for $15 a month.

        I'm not sure why the networks are stunned that people aren't subscribing to watch them, especially when there are 6 major competing streaming services with their own unique Sci-Fi content. If anything, I'm stunned that people have put up with this garbage for as long as they have.

        The problem is that you're only remembering the good episodes. the 5 or 6 a season that were quality, not the filler eps.

        Cutting back on the number of episodes increased the quality of every episode as they had more budget and more time to create better episodes. How many terribad episodes of Star Trek TNG/DS9/VOY were there because they didn't have the money or the actors were all busy doing parts for bigger, better written episodes... Think Holodeck, Barclay, Lwoxana Troi, et al. Things far worse than

        • Yup! The first season of Bewitched had 36 episodes, and they spent the next seven years re-treading those plots. The Golden Girls and Stargate: SG-1 were both loaded with clip shows (good riddance to those).

          I, for one, applaud this shift towards the British approach of having a small writing team producing a small number of high-quality episodes. The huge gaps between seasons, not so much.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tragedy ( 27079 )

            The Golden Girls and Stargate: SG-1 were both loaded with clip shows (good riddance to those).

            To be fair, for clip shows, the SG-1 clip shows were usually fairly well done recaps and there weren't really that many compared to other episodes. They even did episode 200 as a clip show that wasn't really a clip show.

            • Whether or not they were relatively well done aside, they were still clip shows. Regardless of how they are framed, writers throw those in when they're out of ideas and desperately need filler. And I remember getting pretty sick of them.

              A quick check of the fan wiki says there were 5 SG-1 clip shows, averaging one every other season.

      • Series length has been declining for a very long time. My wife started watching Bewitched. The first season (1964) was 36 episodes. The last season (1971) was 26. By the 1990's, the typical season was 22-24 episodes.

        But I don't really mind. Despite your complaint about the writing, the shorter seasons help with that. You don't see clip-show episodes anymore and there are far fewer instances of plot re-use. There are only so many ways a sitcom husband can forget his anniversary before the writers s

    • "New Season Starts Nov. 23rd!"

      (Nov. 25th after bing watching all the episodes...)

      "Did we forget to say that's only half the season? Come back on Dec 23rd to see the rest!"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'm willing to start watching if it's a self contained mini series like Chernobyl, or if the creator has a reputation and a high likelihood of being renewed like Polybius.

      I'm more selective though, no least because there are other forms of entertainment now.

  • I get that the streaming services got stuck in this mindset that if they just flood the zone with as much content as possible, it would be hard for people to do anything *BUT* watch their new content. Well, it's doing exactly what most predicted it would do. People are tired of watching absolute garbage. So tired, in fact, that they are receding into watching reruns on Tubi and Roku, of things that we thought were trash ten years ago, but now appear to be high art in comparison to the absolute lowest common

    • And of course the paid streaming services just inflict more misery when the bill is paid. At least with free, its free. As someone below mentioned, people are getting squeezed. Probably not nearly as much on the /. income bracket, but non-techies with salaries of 50k. I mean have you seen the price of ground beef? I like the Ghirardelli bitter chocolate bars. 5.50 now a bar. I expect by the end of 2026 that could well be 8 bucks, or a dollar a square. They are going to stop making the penny, but I'm thinkin

      • And of course the paid streaming services just inflict more misery when the bill is paid. At least with free, its free. As someone below mentioned, people are getting squeezed. Probably not nearly as much on the /. income bracket, but non-techies with salaries of 50k. I mean have you seen the price of ground beef? I like the Ghirardelli bitter chocolate bars. 5.50 now a bar. I expect by the end of 2026 that could well be 8 bucks, or a dollar a square. They are going to stop making the penny, but I'm thinking they could almost get away with stop making all change. I mean a buck is nothing these days. Something that really wants to be 50c, package it as 2/dollar. Kind of like eons ago pieces of candy for a penny. Like more than one. https://www.newyorker.com/maga... [newyorker.com]

        I've made this suggestion before, but try to track down a local farmer that sells beef direct. I'm still paying less per pound that way than the grocery stores, and getting way better quality than what typically sits on the store shelves. Granted, I'm lucky enough to live where farms are still fairly plentiful.

    • Re:Produce stuff worth watching. (Score:4, Informative)

      by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Monday December 29, 2025 @04:05PM (#65888775) Journal
      Buck Rodgers. Because at least the trash back then had some endearing qualities to it.

      By endearing qualities you mean Erin Grey [reddit.com].

  • Oh look! Another paywalled article that I won't read. Kind of ironic paywalling the article about consumers preferring free.

    Of course people are watching free TV! Years ago people watched free over the air(OTA) TV. Then cable came along. For a nominal monthly fee, you got more and better content, ad free. A triumph. Huge success! Until they decided to milk the consumers by inserting ads again, into programming that we paid for.

    Things became intolerable again with low quality and high ads and piracy started

    • I remember being annoyed by the absence of a-la-carte options with cable TV. I was pissed that I had to pay for a ton of channels I'd never, ever watch just to see the ten I would.

      Oh Lord, how wrong I was! How did al-la-carte make it so much more expensive? And why do I still have to pay for ESPN when I never, ever watch it (up yours Disney/Hulu)??

  • "The shift extends beyond original programming as free, ad-supported streaming services are growing faster than their paid counterparts. YouTube has become the most-watched streaming service on American televisions, now larger than Netflix and Amazon combined."

    Youtube is both a paid streaming and ad-free service. Likewise, Netflix and other paid services have lower ad-supported tiers. The article doesn't seem to recognize that Youtube has plenty of "new" TV shows (quite a few more than other streaming servi

    • It should be clear. Traditionally, if you paid for a channel, i.e. HBO, there were no commercials. If there were commercials, you weren't paying for it. Now, you have to pay and then pay extra if you don't want commercials. That's BS. Pick ONE revenue stream and f-ing live with it.

      • That's not true. People paid for basic cable with commercials for decades before streaming. Only a select number of "premium" channels like HBO were ad-free. But there were also public stations (like PBS, CSPAN, and Public Access) that were commercial-free without being paid-for.

        I think the current situation is better than it was in the cable days. Before, I had little choice but to deal with ads for most content. It was only a select number of shows on premium cable that could be experienced ad-free. Now,

        • Ah, but you paid a cable company to run a line to your house, you didn't pay them for ABC. ABC didn't care how their signal got to you, their revenue came from ad sales. Comcast didn't care if you saw ads, their revenue came from you paying for that coax. Comcast did care if you wanted to watch HBO.

          • But basic cable wasn't just the OTA networks that could be otherwise viewed free. You were also paying for channels like ESPN, which Comcast had to pay to deliver. In fact, out of a $40 cable bill that included a package of ~20 basic cable stations, it wasn't uncommon for $5 to be paid to ESPN. Comcast very much cared if you watched ESPN because they needed to be able to sell their packages optimally to pay those fees. Comcast also cared if you watched HBO or other premium channels because they got a cut wh

  • As soon as stranger things is over... (Score:3)

    by clambake ( 37702 ) on Monday December 29, 2025 @04:12PM (#65888787) Homepage

    I'm cancelling Netflix. It had a good run, but there's nothing even remotely watchable anymore. I'm only finishing Stranger Things just to finish it, not because it's actually interesting anymore.

    Random YouTubers are making better content on their webcams and capture cards than I've seen on any streaming service in years. I've seen better video essays and speedrun documentaries than multimillion dollar projects.

  • Same as cable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by abulafia ( 7826 ) on Monday December 29, 2025 @04:30PM (#65888829)
    Changing the distribution channel didn't change the economics. And entertainment economics don't work for public companies.

    There is only so much time in which to consume entertainment, so you have a (large, but real) ceiling for direct customers. Ads are a way to supplement this, at the cost of irritating direct customers, so that's minimaxible but has a ceiling, too.

    Public markets hate ceilings. So public media companies eat each other.

    This used to mostly be spectacle, you can only get a quarter or two out of goosing the stock with layoffs, so the brunchlord in chief knew to bugger off victorious to the next venture he could shit up.

    But now there are so few left at the top that they can offer a different sort of advertising - what we used to call propaganda.

    You can make a lot of money gaslighting a nation.

  • Americans would watch more new tv shows if there were more new tv shows to actually watch. The vast majority of the tv shows are all unscripted reality TV or an offshoot of an already successful cop show. The broadcasters have ceded the good shows w/plots to the streamers because nobody wants to take the chance on a new un-tested tv show. My guess is they will all fade away into the background and become shells of what they used to be. It's sad, but the reality is they did it to themselves. They fough

  • Physical Media Making A Comeback (Score:4, Interesting)

    by magusxxx ( 751600 ) <magusxxx_2000&yahoo,com> on Monday December 29, 2025 @07:12PM (#65889199)

    I'm one of the people buying up old television shows on DVD. Originally it was to replace the VHS that I myself recorded years and years ago. But now I'm also going after stuff I took for granted would be in syndication or on a streaming service. This way I'll watch it when I want to watch it without ads, having to wait for a certain episode to come on, whatever.

    This stuff is dirt cheap at thrift stores. Just today I bought a BBC/A&E used set of movies (14 discs) for $5.50. (Amazon New: $77 / eBay Used: $25)

    That's almost 29 hours worth of content for less than Netflix's cheapest monthly rate.

  • New shows? I mean what’s that? Do limited series count? Because that makes up a significant chunk of streaming first and HBO content. Throw in sports and you probably have 40-50% of eyeball time.

  • What, there are new TV show series out? I'm still trying to start watching some of the new series that came out ten or fifteen years ago!

    I suspect many potential viewers of new shows just don't have time, with all the good stuff on YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, and (don't laugh) real life activities. And like me, some are planning to binge watch Breaking Bad or Game Of Thrones or some other wildly popular series they haven't had time for yet.

    Why do the makers of these shows crank out so many?

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