Nielsen Charts How Netflix Brought New Life to ‘Suits’ and ‘Fire Country’

It’s no secret that Netflix has the power to turn licensed titles into trending shows, from annual fall rewatches of “Gilmore Girls” to the “Suits” frenzy that sparked a resurgence for the legal drama and led to NBC greenlighting spinoff series “Suits LA.”

In Nielsen’s newest report, the measurement service charts the “Netflix effect” seen across shows like “Suits” and “Lucifer,” whose streaming viewership surpassed its original linear audience when they landed on the platform. The data also highlights CBS firefighter drama “Fire Country” and CW teen drama “Riverdale,” which both saw massive growth in audience awareness after landing on Netflix.

“It’s really that boosting effect of people discovering a show or movie on Netflix that maybe they loved and had forgotten about, or perhaps it’s brand new to them and they hadn’t seen it before, and by virtue of the fact that Netflix is the most distributed service in the country they’re discovering it for the first time,” Brian Hughes, Nielsen’s director of data communications, told TheWrap. “It’s grown beyond Netflix itself to really come to mean how programming plays in the current ecosystem.”

While “Suits” had garnered 51.1 billion viewing minutes for its first eight seasons on USA Network from 2011-2019, Nielsen data shows the legal drama’s original run was outpaced by 13% through its streaming viewership during the “Suits” frenzy, with the show logging 57.7 billion viewing minutes across Netflix and Peacock from June to December 2023.

“Lucifer” saw a similar new life — quite literally as the streamer revived the series for three seasons after its cancellation at Fox. The first two seasons reached 7 billion viewing minutes, while Season 3 reached 8.4 billion viewing minutes on Fox, while, on Netflix, Season 1 reached 8.4 billion viewing minutes and Seasons 2 and 3 reached 9.6 and 10.6 billion viewing minutes, respectively.

Likewise, while “Riverdale” averaged 1.4 billion viewing minutes on the CW during its first season, its Netflix debut in between its freshman and sophomore installments boosted its audience to reach 2.1 billion viewing minutes for the first 13 episodes of its second season. And “Fire Country” saw a viewing spike upon its first season entering Netflix, with its premiere viewership growing 54.75% between Season 2 and 3.

“Even though it was only the first season that was on Netflix, it actually helped boost viewing on Paramount+ for the third season after that came out,” Hughes said of the “Netflix effect’s” impact on “Fire Country.” “It’s this interesting interplay between shows that might start on linear and then go to different places on streaming, and how all those different locations interact with each other.”

While Hughes couldn’t speak to whether there’s a financial incentive for licensed shows that benefit from this “Netflix effect,” he noted that “being able to point to solid viewing numbers would be an asset in any kind of negotiations.” He noted how Netflix’s impact on “Suits” led to NBCUniversal approaching creator Aaron Korsh to create the NBC spinoff series “Suits LA,” which features original cast members in recurring roles.

But shows that could benefit from the “Netflix effect” are still difficult to predict. Hughes pointed to strong streaming figures for dramas that haven’t migrated to Netflix, from Apple TV+’s “Severance” to Hulu’s “Paradise” to Paramount+’s “1923.”

“Everything has the potential,” Hughes said. “I think it’s just a matter of how the traveling across the ecosystem happens over time.”

“Adolescence” keeps growing

After “Adolescence”  became Netflix’s most-watched limited series in its first two weeks on the streamer, the U.K. crime drama entered Netflix’s most-watched TV series of all time list with a whopping 96.7 million views in its first three weeks.

“Adolescence” now stands at No. 9 on the list, ahead of “Stranger Things 3,” which now sits at No. 10 with 94.8 million views since its 2019 debut, and behind “Fool Me Once” and “The Night Agent” Season 1, which both currently have 98.2 million views to date.

CBS delivers solid multiplatform viewership

Ten of CBS’ currently airing programs surpassed 10 million viewers across both CBS and Paramount+, according to Nielsen live-plus-35-day viewing figures. “Watson’s” post-AFC Championship premiere episode led the pack with 18.7 million viewers across over a month of viewing, with “Tracker” and “Matlock” maintaining their place as the network’s crown jewels of the season with 18 million and 15.8 million average viewers, respectively.

Freshman comedy “Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage” came next with 12.7 million viewers, while “Elsbeth” averaged 10.9 million viewers and “Ghosts” averaged 10.8 million viewers. “Fire Country” scored an average viewership of 10.5 million, “FBI” averaged 10.4 million viewers, “NCIS” averaged 10.4 million viewers and “Blue Bloods,” which ended in December, closed out the pack with 10 million average viewers.

Fox News breaks quarterly records

Fox News benefited from Donald Trump’s return to office, with the right-leaning network scoring its best quarter in cable news history in terms of total weekday viewership.

During the first quarter of 2025, the network averaged 2.20 million weekday viewers, according to Nielsen, narrowly outpacing the previous quarterly record, which Fox News set by averaging 2.17 million weekday viewers during the second quarter of 2020.

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