100 Most-Watched TV Series of 2025-26 Across Streaming, Broadcast and Cable: ‘Stranger Things,’ NFL, ‘Tracker,’ ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Top the Charts

Jun 4, 2026 9:30am PT 100 Most-Watched TV Series of 2025-26 Across Streaming, Broadcast and Cable: ‘Stranger Things,’ NFL, ‘Tracker,’ ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Top the Charts

Our annual look at the Nielsen ranker for all of TV during the 2025-2026 TV season in total viewers, according to 35-day multiplatform viewership, as well as broadcast/cable L7 ratings charts.

By Michael Schneider

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Michael Schneider

Variety Editor at Large

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Courtesy of Netflix / CBS / ABC / Getty Images

TV audiences were high on the Upside Down this season. “Stranger Things” ended its final season with an average of 32.9 million viewers, easily making it the most-watched series of the just concluded 2025 26 TV frame. The Netflix thriller averaged that number over 35 days, per Nielsen’s multiplatform ranker.

Netflix also scored the previous season No. 1 with “Squid Game.” Nielsen introduced the multiplatform data last year, finally giving us an apples-to-apples comparison of how shows are doing on streaming versus linear. This chart doesn’t include sports series like “Sunday Night Football,” which would still be No. 1 (at least in linear), but does give us a clearer look at what truly were the most-watched regular series of the year.

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