Most-Watched TV Series of 2025-26 Across Streaming, Broadcast and Cable: ‘Stranger Things’ Leads This Season’s Rankers

Our annual look at Nielsen rankers for all of TV during the 2025-2026 TV season in total viewers, according to 35-day multiplatform viewership.

By Michael Schneider

Michael Schneider

Variety Editor at Large

Latest

• Most-Watched TV Series of 2025-26 Across Streaming, Broadcast and Cable: ‘Stranger Things’ Leads This Season’s Rankers 1 hour ago
• L.A. Plays Itself — But Not All of It — In Comedies Like ‘Hacks,’ ‘Nobody Wants This,’ ‘The Studio’ and ‘Shrinking’ 2 hours ago
• ‘The Simpsons’ to Premiere Three New Original Episodes on Disney+ This Summer; Laufey, Betty Gilpin Among Guest Stars 3 hours ago

“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 2025-2026 TV season. The Netflix thriller averaged that number over 35 days, per Nielsen’s multiplatform ranker.

Nielsen introduced the multiplatform data last year, finally giving us an apples-to-apples comparison of how shows are doing on streaming vs. linear — and how those broadcast shows are benefiting via time-shifted viewing on their streaming partner. 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 more interesting look at what truly are the most-watched regular series of the year.

Related Stories

Fox Corp. Sees Q3 Profit Dip, Citing Absence of Super Bowl