“NCIS” was the most-streamed program, according to the weekly figures released Thursday by Nielsen, returning to the top after a three-week absence.
Viewers watched 890 million minutes of 353 episodes of the action drama that streams on Netflix between April 19-25, up 14.2% from the 779 million minutes watched the previous week when it finished second.
The first-place finish came on a week CBS made a same-day decision not to air an original episode of “NCIS” after the announcement that a verdict had been reached in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was prosecuted for the death of George Floyd.
“NCIS” also finished first the week of March 22-28 with 725 million minutes watched, then dropped to fifth the following week with 535 million minutes watched. It began its climb back to the top the next week, finishing third with 701 million minutes watched from April 5-11.
One week after finishing first, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” dropped to second, with 796 million minutes watched, 6.9% less than the 855 million minutes the previous week. The latest viewership figure includes the first three days of release of the finale of the six-episode Marvel miniseries that streams on Disney+.
“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” was the only non-Netflix program in the Top 10. Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Hulu and Amazon Prime Video programming.
There were three newcomers to the Top 10, topped by “Shadow and Bone,” third for the week with 721 million minutes watched in the first three days of release of the eight-episode Netflix fantasy series based on the Grisha novel trilogy.
The short-lived ABC romantic comedy-drama “The Baker and the Beauty,” was eighth for the week, with 495 million minutes watched of its nine episodes. It aired on ABC from April 13-June 1, 2020.
The other newcomer to the Top 10 was the 2014-18 Nickelodeon quadruplets comedy “Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn,” 10th for the week with 364 million minutes watched of its 83 episodes.
Dropping out of the Top 10 were Netflix’s superhero film comedy “Thunder Force,” Amazon Prime Video’s horror drama anthology “Them” and the Emmy Award-winning comedy “Schitt’s Creek.”
The top 10 consisted of six programs that originally aired on U.S. broadcast or cable networks, three original streaming programs and “CoComelon,” which originated as 3D animation videos of both traditional nursery rhymes and original children’s songs on YouTube.
The Top 10 programs were “NCIS”; “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”; “Shadow and Bone”; “Grey’s Anatomy”; “The Circle”; “Criminal Minds”; “CoCoMelon”; “The Baker and the Beauty”; “Heartland”; and “Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn.”
The figures only reflect television set-related viewing, including such television-connected devices as Roku and Apple TV. Mobile-only viewing is not included in Nielsen’s streaming measurement systems.