Suits was the most streamed title of 2023 – a sign that licensed content is here to stay.
According to media analysts Nielsen, the TV show, which originally ran from 2011 to 2019, was watched for a total of 57.7 billion minutes on Netflix last year. That beat The Office‘s previous record of 57.1 billion minutes, which was set in 2020.
Children’s show Bluey was the second most-watched last year, with 43.9 billion minutes on Disney+.
There were no original shows from the streamers in the end-of-year top 10 list, with all being acquired from other networks. Other top licensed shows streaming last year that made the most watched list include NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, Cocomelon, The Big Bang Theory, Gilmore Girls and Friends.
Suits first ran on cable channel the USA Network but saw a huge surge in viewership after being added to Netflix last summer. The legal drama starred Rick Hoffman as Louis Litt, Gina Torres as Jessica Pearson, Gabriel Macht as Harvey Specter, Patrick J. Adams as Mike Ross, Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane, and Sarah Rafferty as Donna Paulsen.
It is the “perfect binge show”, Time magazine said in August after it started streaming on Netflix in the United States and Canada.
“Suits hits a sweet spot,” Eliana Dockterman wrote. “The plots are silly, but never dumb. The dialogue may make you roll your eyes, but it’s clever just often enough…You can look down at your computer to answer emails for a 40-minute span, look back up again, and you haven’t missed anything particularly significant. And yet something dramatic and entertaining is happening.”
The movies chart was dominated by children’s content, with the top spot going to Moana from Disney+, with 11.6 billion viewing minutes. The following six spots going to kids’ titles as well: Encanto (9.7 billion), Super Mario Bros Movie (8.8 billion), Elemental (8.6 billion), Minions: The Rise of Gru (7.1 billion), Sing 2 (6.7 billion) and Frozen (6.5 billion). The bottom three on the chart were franchise films for an adult audience: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (6.4 billion), Avatar: The Way of Water (6.4 billion) and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (6.3 billion). Each movie on the chart had a full theatrical release before later debuting on streaming except for Glass Onion, which only had a limited theatrical release.
Per Nielsen, streaming viewership was up 21% in 2023 compared to 2022 — a consecutive year of growth, as 2022 streaming viewership was up 24.6% from 2021.
