2016 was a banner year for streaming television. HBO’s Westworld was an instant hit among premium subscribers, Amazon imported the BBC sensation Fleabag, and Hulu provided a digital home for the FX comedy Altanta. Netflix gave viewers a history lesson with The Crown and turned an 80s nostalgia vehicle called Stranger Things into the year’s most notable sleeper hit.
As we head into 2026, Stranger Things is reaching the conclusion of its five-season run, and the streaming TV landscape could hardly look more different from its 2016 appearance. There is no glut of acclaimed new shows that have everyone buzzing. The industry is on the precipice of consolidation, with Netflix looking to consume struggling rivals. The era of “peak TV” that brought us so many exciting premiere might be heading toward a valley.
Bloomberg has shared some data from Nielsen that characterizes how dramatic that shift has been. Since 2020, the shows that have captured the most U.S. streaming watch time — and the most placements in Nielsen’s associated top-ten rankings — are familiar favorites from network and cable TV.
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NCIS has accumulated 151.4 billion minutes of watch time while in the top ten over that span, while Grey’s Anatomy is close behind with 148.8 billon minutes of watch time. The streaming originals that are closest to those 2000s debutants are in a different league altogether; Netflix’s Ozark ranked #1 on that list with 55.3 billion minutes of watch time while positioned in Nielsen’s top ten.
Other entertainment trends corroborate those findings. Netflix’s internal data has shown that its licensed TV library accounts for many of its most-watched programs. On YouTube, nostalgia for bygone shows is so powerful that studios have attempted to revive long-dormant programs like the Friends spinoff Joey.
When premium subscription services can no longer use splashy originals to get ahead, their ballooning price tags start to look a lot more onerous. In an era of widespread cost-cutting, consumers are turning to free services like Tubi and The Roku Channel. Two years ago, Nielsen’s measurements shows that those hubs were generating similar traffic to Peacock and HBO Max. Now, they account for nearly twice as much watch time when compared to those premium competitors.
2025 may have been the year that firmly slammed the door shut on the era of peak streaming TV. For the first time since Nielsen’s tracking began, none of the top ten most-watched streaming originals of the year were new shows. Viewers are caught in a loop of reruns, rehashes, and licensed favorites.
Stranger Things season five isn’t a new streaming original, but the Midwest American horror show exemplifies the shifting streaming landscape better than any other. A franchise that began as an earnest throwback has taken so long to reach its conclusion that many fans have lost interest. Even if you don’t think season five is “genuinely dreadful Netflix slop,” there’s no arguing that the bloated show has struggled to keep up with evolving appetites. “If season two was a costlier but inferior version of season one, then season five is what season four might have been if Netflix hadn’t felt the need to draw out a plot that was already thrice redundant,” reads one review published in Time.
Maybe 2026 will bring us the new original show that changes the narrative once again, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for the next Squid Game to arrive. Today’s culture is simply too fractured to produce a single program that defines the zeitgeist all on its own. Instead, viewers are retreating to the shows they know and love, while prioritizing the platforms that can bring that content to them in the most cost-effective manner possible.
