Week of July 1 was biggest single week in streaming ever: Nielsen

It’s no question that streaming is big — but there’s now another significant benchmark to support that.

During the week of July 1 to July 7, 2024, Nielsen says it charted a record-setting number of viewership on U.S. paid platforms — 313 billion minutes.

Put another way, that represents 595,509 years or over 217 million days of streaming minutes. Also, consider that 1 billion minutes is about 1,902 years. 

That figure represents the cumulative total of non-mobile streaming on U.S. premium subscription services and moves to the top of the record charts for a single measurement week.

In the single-day rankings, July 7, 2024, comes in as the fourth-highest streaming viewership ever calculated by Nielsen, behind close ties for Jan. 13, 2024, the day of the NFL Wild Card playoff game on Peacock, and Feb. 17, 2024, and Feb. 18, 2024, the post-Super Bowl weekend.

Jan. 13 remains the highest streaming day by volume.

It’s not uncommon for holiday weeks to coincide with notable upticks in TV watch time, notes Nielsen.

The Fourth of July holiday week in particular is a big driver of this phenomenon and in the past two years has included a 3.8 billion minute performance by “Suits” in 2023 and 4.8 billion minutes for “Stranger Things” in 2022.

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The 2024 Independence Day holiday week was boosted by Netflix’s “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.,” “Suits” across Netflix and Peacock and “House of the Dragon” on Max.

Nielsen’s figures for streaming do not include mobile devices.