2024 TV Ratings Winners: Sports Expands Footprint as Streaming Leads the Way

Sports have always been a ratings winner, but 2024 saw an unprecedented amount of streaming sports events, all of which drew massive audiences.

The Paris Olympics boosted Peacock to reach its biggest share of TV viewing across linear and streaming yet, with the streamer’s monthly audience growing by 39% in August. Meanwhile, Netflix hosted one of its first major live sporting events with the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight that co-CEO Ted Sarandos compared to a “Super Bowl-like audience.”

Amid a steady decline in linear viewership across the board, one major event prompted a spike in cable news viewership: Donald Trump’s re-election. Many MSNBC and CNN viewers turned off the TV following the November election, but Fox News’ ratings benefitted from the results, with the network seeing an 11% uptick in primetime viewership after the election.

With an influx of new series debuting across linear and streaming, many thrived, including Peacock’s “The Traitors” and “Love Island USA,” Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone,” as well as several broadcast favorites, like CBS’ “Matlock” and ABC’s “High Potential” and “Dancing With the Stars,” which saw impressive growth on streaming platforms. And of course, “Bluey” remained No. 1, racking up 50.5 billion minutes watched on Disney+.

For the full breakdown of the 2024 ratings winners, see below.

Disney

This year, Disney was bolstered by the strength of its series on streaming, including the tried and true kids series “Bluey,” which closed out 2024 as the No. 1 most-watched streaming show, tallying 842 million hours (50.5 billion minutes) watched for viewers in the U.S. on Disney+, according to Nielsen data through November.

While the entertainment giant’s acclaimed series did not draw quite as big of an audience, the numbers were still fairly impressive. “Shōgun” hit a series-high of 608 million viewing minutes in the wake of its finale during the week of April 22, becoming the week’s No. 4 most-watched streaming original. Disney+’s “Agatha All Along” debuted its first two episodes in September to 426 million viewing minutes, and the show’s final two episodes boosted the show to 744 million minutes, reaching the No. 10 slot on the overall most-streamed chart during the week of Oct. 28.

The Walt Disney Company led Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge for every month in 2024 except for July when viewing on YouTube outpaced Disney, and August when the Olympics boosted NBCUniversal to the top of the list. For viewing in November, Disney led the charge for the third consecutive month with 11% of TV viewing, with its streaming arms accounting for 43% of its total share.

Fox News

Fox News has long dominated the cable news ratings leaderboard, and the re-election of Donald Trump this November only helped boost the network’s numbers. Fox News has seen double-digit percentage increases across its primetime and total day viewership since the election, with primetime numbers growing 11% to reach a post-election average viewership of 2.63 million, according to Nielsen figures through Dec. 15, while total day viewership saw a 20% jump to average 1.7 million viewers. With MSNBC and CNN shedding their audiences since the election, Fox News has captured a 73% share of viewers watching cable news.

For the full year of 2024, Fox News averaged 2.41 million viewers in primetime — up 31% when compared to 2023 — and reached total daily viewers of 1.46 million viewers — up 21% from 2023. For 2024, the network captured a 55% share the cable news audience in primetime and 53% in total day, its highest since 2015.

Peacock

The Paris 2024 Olympics boosted Peacock to reach a new platform best share of TV usage as it captured 2.1% of viewing across linear and streaming in August, according to Nielsen’s Gauge report. While 2.1% of all TV viewing doesn’t appear to be much, Peacock saw the largest growth of all the streamers as its audience increased by 33% in July, thanks to both the 2024 Games, which kicked off on July 26, as well as “Love Island USA,” which became an unexpected hit with its sixth season. As the Paris Olympics continued through Aug. 11, Peacock’s monthly audience grew by 39% that month and nearly doubled its viewers ages 35-49. The streamer became the third streaming platform in 2024 year to record a 0.5 point share increase or more on a monthly basis as July’s 1.5% share grew to 2.1% in August. The streamer fell back to its usual levels later in the year, finishing November with a 1.5% share.

Earlier in the year, Peacock’s “The Traitors” became a ratings hit when Season 2 debuted in January and quickly captivated viewers. “The Traitors” became the most-watched unscripted series in the U.S. across all streaming platforms as it logged 384 million minutes viewed during the week of Jan. 15 across all episodes of Season 1 and the four available episodes of Season 2. The show will return for Season 3 on Jan. 9.

“Yellowstone” and the Taylor Sheridan Universe

While “Yellowstone” bid adieu to Kevin Costner, the show’s ratings did not falter in the slightest when the Paramount Network series returned for the second half of its fifth season in November. The Season 5B premiere scored the show’s biggest premiere viewership as it scored 16.4 million viewers across Paramount Network, CBS and its other cable encore viewings. The Season 5 finale scored a series ratings-high for “Yellowstone” with 11.4 million viewers, and wrapped up the second half of the season with a 4% audience increase over the first half of the season. That strong performance is likely to repeat with the various spinoff series set to return to Paramount+, starting with the second season of “1923” in February.

“Yellowstone” wasn’t the only series under Taylor Sheridan’s watch that saw impressive ratings this year. Billy Bob Thornton-led “Landman” became the most-watched Paramount+ original series of all time as it reached 14.9 million households globally in its first four weeks. And the second season of “Lioness” saw a 10% increase in viewership compared to its first season, reaching 8.3 million domestic households.

Women’s Sports

Women’s sports have been gaining traction for years, but this year’s ratings reached incredible new highs. Caitlin Clark’s journey taking the Iowa Hawkeyes through March Madness drew in a record-breaking number of eyeballs, culminating with the matchup between Iowa and South Carolina bringing in 18.9 million viewers across ABC and ESPN. The game saw 89% and 285% increases over the national championship game for 2023 and 2022, respectively, and ranked as the second most-watched non-Olympic women’s sporting event ever on U.S. television, behind only the 2015 Women’s World Cup final.

The women’s NCAA basketball tournament lead into the 2024 Olympic games, which saw Simone Biles and U.S. women’s gymnastics team boost ratings all the way from the opening trials — which became the most-watched Olympic trials telecast since July 2016 — through the finals — which boosted the day’s events to reach 34.7 million viewers across NBC, Peacock other NBCUniversal platforms. That nearly doubled the audience of the first Tuesday of competition during the Tokyo 2021 Olympics.

Netflix’s Mike Tyson-Jake Paul Fight

As Netflix expands its live sports programming in the lead-up to its NFL Christmas Day game and the 2025 debut of WWE Monday Night RAW, the streamer scored an unprecedented audience for its fight against boxing legend Mike Tyson and newcomer Jake Paul. Despite some notable streaming interruptions, the event drew 108 million viewers from the event’s opening to closing bell, peaking at 65 million live concurrent streams, with 38 million concurrent streams in the U.S. alone.

The event, which took place on Friday, Nov. 15, became the most-streamed global sporting event ever, with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos touting the “enormous live audience” in early December, saying “You’d have to go back to the ’80s to get a live audience that big. It’s a Super Bowl-like audience that we were able to draw for this fight.”

While it’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison to last year’s Super Bowl, which scored 123.7 million viewers, the fight was Netflix’s most-watched title of the week with a whopping 46.6 million views.

Linear Content on Streaming

Amid the sustained decline in linear viewership — with streaming growing to a record share of 41.6% for November’s TV viewing, per Nielsen’s Gauge report — broadcast shows thrived in delayed viewing on their parent company’s streaming platforms.

After 35 days of multi-platform viewing on CBS, Paramount + and other CBS digital platforms, “Tracker” is averaging 18.2 million viewers per episode, while “Matlock” is averaging 16.9 million per episode. Likewise, ABC’s “High Potential,” “Abbott Elementary” and “9-1-1” were among the top 5 most streamed broadcast series this fall, with “High Potential” taking the No. 1 spot with 4.30 million average viewers. Additionally, viewership for the “Dancing With the Stars” Season 33 finale grew 25% after a week of viewing across ABC, Disney+, Hulu and digital platforms to reach the show’s biggest multi-platform audience since 2021.

Linear content continued to perform well on streaming. Staples “Family Guy,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Bob’s Burgers” consistently made it into Nielsen’s most-watched streaming lists, while series like “Gilmore Girls,” “Prison Break,” “Lost” and “Criminal Minds” also popped into the top 10 throughout the year.

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