Netflix‘s latest viewership report shows that the oldies in its library are still goodies. The latest edition of the streamer’s What We Watched recap revealed that classics like Suits and Avatar: The Last Airbender rank among the most popular offerings in the entire global Netflix catalog.
This is the third time that Netflix has shared precise viewership data across a specific six-month period. The new What We Watched report covers the first half of 2024, when some prominent originals drew attention from Netflix viewers. The limited series Fool Me Once was the only program to get more than 100 million views during the measured period, but the third season of Bridgerton was hot on its heels with approximately 91.9 million half-year views.
The upper echelon of the list reinforces some of the themes we pulled out during our coverage of the inaugural What We Watched report. There are more TV shows than movies in the Top 50, with children’s programming well-represented in the ranking. Netflix originals fill out the entire top ten, but further down the list, an interesting pattern emerges: People love watching their favorites.
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For example: Netflix’s ho-hum live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender placed fifth in the report, but the animated show that inspired that remake also cracked the top 100. The first season of the OG Avatar series, from 2005, got more than 12 million Netflix views during the measured period.
Other TV classics in the top 100 include season one of Suits (from 2011), season one of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013) and season one of Young Sheldon (2017). Children’s programming wasn’t immune to this phenomenon, as season one of Peppa Pig (2004) cracked the top 40.
This trend isn’t necessarily novel (we all have that one friend who only watches reruns of The Office), but the popularity of shows like the animated Avatar and Suits are an important reminder for Netflix. Even though the streamer spends liberally to compete with rivals like Max and Amazon Prime in the realm of original content, its library of licensed shows is vital to its success.
And if one of those TV classics isn’t for you, I’ve got good news: There’s plenty more Netflix content to choose from. What We Watched includes more than 6,800 programs in total. You can download a complete copy of the report via a corresponding Netflix blog post.
