‘Stranger Things,’ ‘Bluey’ & ‘The Pitt’ Dominate Streaming TV In H1 2026; Peacock Rates High With Unscripted Originals

Stranger Things continued to lord over the television landscape far after the series finale.

The Netflix sci-fi series was the most-watched streaming title through the first six months of the year with 23.26 billion minutes viewed, per Nielsen‘s biannual reporting. It set several records in the weeks after the series concluded, including the highest weekly viewing total in Nielsen’s streaming Top 10 history with 8.65B viewing minutes during the week of December 29.

However, it occupied a rare spot for a streaming original among the Top 10, which was dominated by linear-first titles. Bluey secured second place with 22.81B minutes viewed.

Among streaming originals, The Pitt also crossed the 20B-minute threshold with 21.12B minutes viewed through the first half of the year. Nielsen points out that the sophomore season saw a big lift in viewership over Season 1, which Warner Bros. Discovery backed up with its own data in April.

Bridgerton was the only other streaming original to place among the Top 10, coming in sixth with 17.15B minutes viewed — no doubt thanks in part to the release of Season 4 earlier this year.

Grey’s Anatomy and The Big Bang Theory are unsurprisingly back in the Top 10, as they have been for several consecutive years. Both have driven over 20B minutes of viewership on streaming platforms from January through June.

Overall, the Top 10 streaming titles in the first half of the year are:

While they didn’t make the cut for Top 10, Nielsen still gave kudos to Landman on Paramount+, which managed No. 13 overall with 12.4B minutes viewed, and Prime Video’s Fallout for its No. 9 placement with 7.98B minutes viewed.

Nielsen also notes a few unscripted titles that have managed to rank within the Top 20 most-streamed shows so far this year. Among them are Peacock’s The Traitors and Love Island USA, which lead the unscripted streaming original titles at 7.74B minutes and 7.62B minutes, respectively. They were also top shows among adults 18-34.

Overall, The First 48 took the unscripted streaming crown at No. 18 overall with 11.33B minutes viewed across Hulu, Peacock and Pluto TV. Survivor also did very well on streaming with 9.36B minutes viewed on Paramount+.

Here are the rest of the insights from Nielsen for the first half of the year.