For the first time, Nielsen released charts of the top streaming content of the year for 2020, with geek shows making a strong showing in these initial, imperfect rankings of U.S. viewership.  Lucifer was the #2 show on the Top Streaming Content of 2020 – Original Series chart, with The Mandalorian at #5 and The Umbrella Academy at #6.  How could Lucifer beat The Mandalorian?  Lucifer had 75 episodes available by the end of the year, while The Mandalorian had only 16 and The Umbrella Academy had 20.  And as of the end of the year, the Netflix subscriber base was still larger than the size of the Disney+ audience, although the extent of the lead was unclear, as Disney does not break out U.S. subscribers.

Lucifer Season 5 dropped on August 21.  The series originally aired on Fox; Netflix picked it up with Season 4 (see “’Lucifer’ Drop Date”).

Top 10 Streaming Content of 2020 – Original Series

Rank

Program Name

SVOD Provider(s)

# of Episodes

Minutes Streamed
(Nearest Million)

1

OZARK

Netflix

30

30,462

2

LUCIFER

Netflix

75

18,975

3

THE CROWN

Netflix

40

16,275

4

TIGER KING

Netflix

8

15,611

5

THE MANDALORIAN

Disney+

16

14,519

6

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY

Netflix

20

13,470

7

GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW

Netflix

65

13,279

8

BOSS BABY: BACK IN BUSINESS

Netflix

49

12,625

9

LONGMIRE

Netflix

63

11,382

10

YOU

Netflix

20

10,965

Source: Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Hulu), Nielsen National TV Panel, U.S. Viewing through Television. U.S. Persons 2+, Total Minutes Viewed During 2020 (December 30, 2019 through December 27, 2020).  Read as: Ozark had nearly 30.5 billion minutes streamed.

The Nielsen chart of the Top Acquired Series was dominated by long running series with lots of episodes: comfort food for the Covid era.

Top 10 Streaming Content of 2020 – Acquired Series

Rank

Program Name

SVOD Provider(s)

# of Episodes

Minutes Streamed
(Nearest Million)

1

THE OFFICE 

Netflix

192

57,127

2

GREY'S ANATOMY

Netflix

366

39,405

3

CRIMINAL MINDS

Netflix

277

35,414

4

NCIS

Netflix

353

28,134

5

SCHITT'S CREEK

Netflix

70

23,785

6

SUPERNATURAL

Netflix

318

20,336

7

SHAMELESS

Netflix

122

18,218

8

NEW GIRL

Netflix

146

14,545

9

THE BLACKLIST

Netflix

152

14,480

10

VAMPIRE DIARIES

Netflix

171

14,091

Source: Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Hulu), Nielsen National TV Panel, U.S. Viewing through Television. U.S. Persons 2+, Total Minutes Viewed During 2020 (December 30, 2019 through December 27, 2020). Read as: The Office had over 57 billion minutes streamed.

Meanwhile, as we’ve noted elsewhere, kids were home ALL THE TIME in 2020, leading to kids movies dominating the list of the top streaming movies for the year.

Top 10 Streaming Content of 2020 – Movies

Rank

Program Name

SVOD Provider(s)

# of Episodes

Minutes Streamed
(Nearest Million)

1

FROZEN II

Disney+

1

14,924

2

MOANA

Disney+

1

10,507

3

SECRET LIFE OF PETS 2

Netflix

1

9,123

4

ONWARD

Disney+

1

8,367

5

DR SEUSS' THE GRINCH

Netflix

1

6,180

6

HAMILTON

Disney+

1

6,132

7

SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL

Netflix

1

5,374

8

ALADDIN (2019)

Disney+

1

5,172

9

TOY STORY 4

Disney+

1

4,416

10

ZOOTOPIA

Disney+

1

4,400

Source: Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Hulu), Nielsen National TV Panel, U.S. Viewing through Television. U.S. Persons 2+, Total Minutes Viewed During 2020 (December 30, 2019 through December 27, 2020).  Read as: Frozen II had nearly 15 billion minutes streamed.

The Nielsen charts, which are offering the first standardized ratings of streaming viewership, still have a ways to go to give a full picture of audience behaviors.  The data is limited to viewers on televisions, which means that people who view content on computers, tablets, or phones are not counted.  And Nielsen at this point is only tracking the largest streamers; HBO Max, CBS All Access, Peacock, anime streamers FUNimation and Crunchyroll, and other smaller streamers are not tracked.  We wonder how some of the anime series with lots of episodes, for example, would have stacked up in minutes viewed against the more mainstream fare on Neilsen’s chart.  Regardless, it’s great to have at least some data and presumably Nielsen will be improving the ratings over time.