‘The Recruit’ Joins Netflix’s Domination of Most-Streamed Series Rankings | Charts

Netflix fans have pushed a new recruit into the most-streamed programming charts for the past week. The Noah Centineo-led series “The Recruit,” following a rookie CIA agent in an international political drama, debuted its first two episodes atop the streaming charts. The series joined Netflix’s “Wednesday” and “Harry & Meghan,” both of which remained on the charts in this week’s edition of Samba TV’s Weekly Wrap report. 

The Wrap report provides an exclusive first look at the most-watched movies and individual TV programs from the past week across both linear television and streaming. Viewership insights come from data collected from a panel of more than 3 million households drawn from over 25 million connected TVs balanced to the U.S. Census. For the second consecutive week, Netflix dominated the streaming charts, sweeping each of the top 10 placements.

Netflix’s “Harry & Meghan” docuseries remained a dominant force on the charts, comprising three of the top five overall placements for the week. The buzz-generating ability of the younger generation of royals has been on full display, with each episode of the six-part series garnering viewership from over 1 million U.S. households. However, unlike “Wednesday,” which has attracted a high volume of new viewers to episode 1 week after week, the premiere episode of “Harry & Meghan” slipped considerably this week, dropping from the top spot all the way down to No. 10.

The drop would seem to indicate that interest has peaked with new household discovery waning. Between the release of Part I and Part II of the series, the program also shed a third of its audience, which may be a result of overall fatigue of the media-saturated former working royal couple or a result of the distribution model Netflix chose for the series. By breaking the content into two separate weeks, Netflix nixed the ability of binge-watchers to consume all of the programming before their attention wandered to other streaming content or platforms.

Meanwhile “Wednesday” has had an incredible run atop the charts. Remarkably the program has continued to draw in sizable new audiences week after week. This marks the fourth consecutive week the Tim Burton-created series has ranked in the top streaming programs. For the fourth week in a row, the premiere episode of “The Addams’ Family” spin-off remained in the top 10, a strong indication that new audiences are continuing to discover the series. All signs point to the show notching several more weeks of strong viewership as audiences binge the remaining episodes.

On linear television, ABC broke back into the top 10 list after being shut out last week on the back of a duo of classic family favorites. ABC’s airings of “The Sound of Music” and “Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration” propelled the broadcast network to two of the top 10 spots. The musical television special, which blends Disney’s classic animated film with live action musical showcases featuring H.E.R as Belle and Josh Groban portraying the beast along with performances from Martin Short as Lumiere, Shania Twain as Mrs. Potts, David Allan Grier as Cogsworth and Joshua Henry as Gaston, landed the No. 8 spot on the weekly charts.

Holiday-inspired programs captured more than a third of the top tier programming across linear television. NBC specials “A Saturday Night Live Christmas Special” and “Dr. Seuss’ the Grinch” and CBS’s “Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to All!” and “When Christmas Was Young” — starring Tyler Hilton and featuring original music by Sheryl Crow — each claimed a spot amongst the top 10 for the week.

Paramount Network once again went back to back in securing the top spot in all of linear TV with its original series “Yellowstone” topping all networks. The special airing of “1923,” a prequel series to Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone,” proved continued demand for all things Sheridan as the Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren-led show captured the seventh most-watched spot for the week, giving cable network Paramount Network as many top 10 shows as broadcast network ABC.

Aside from the top charts this week, the superhero film “Black Adam,” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, made its streaming debut on HBO Max. The film’s premiere week viewership appeared to fall short of other films that hit streamers earlier this year, like “Batman,” “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness,” and “Thor: Love and Thunder.” However, it was a hit with younger and diverse audiences. Black households were more likely to watch the adventure film than the national average by nearly 25%, and Gen Z and Millennial audiences also over-indexed on viewership. 

As with all of television, the future of live sports continues to undergo a systemic shift away from pure legacy models to streaming models where most Americans now consume content. While the Weekly Wrap doesn’t include live sporting events, the mega-deal to make NFL Sunday Ticket available via YouTube TV next season has the industry buzzing about the seismic shifts underway in television. 

With streaming platforms continuing to reshape the world of live sports, YouTube TV now joins other companies like Amazon, which secured the rights to stream live Thursday night NFL football games this season, and Apple, which streams both Champions League soccer matches and Major League Baseball games.

YouTube TV’s latest move will almost certainly hasten the decline of linear television as it continues to lose the rights to its last major stronghold on household audiences. Last month, every single one of the top 10 linear television programs were NFL games. This latest deal is a sign of the future where all content will be streamed and that the market is speeding towards a future where NFL football games and those of other sports, including baseball and basketball, will be streaming first. 

Dallas Lawrence is the SVP and head of communications and brand at Samba TV, a WrapPRO partner. For more from Samba TV, click here.