Streaming has upended the traditional TV show release cycle, but there’s still something that just feels right about a show starting its season in the fall. With the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes pushing many season premieres back to 2024, this fall feels a bit different.
The strikes’ effects are already evident in the Samba TV Weekly Wrap Report for the week of Sept. 4-10, where reruns are among the most-watched programs on the linear side. On the streaming side, a lighter premiere schedule can benefit a returning show in a major way, as evidenced by Netflix’s “Virgin River” coming in first place.
Returning for its fifth season, the romantic drama was popular with female viewers, as households with a female member overindexed on the show by 8% during the week.
The Wrap Report provides an exclusive first look at the most-watched movies and TV series from the past week across both streaming and linear television sourced from viewership trends collected from Samba TV’s panel of more than 3 million households drawn from over 25 million connected TVs, balanced to the U.S. Census.
While Netflix held the top spot for the week, its stranglehold on the charts was broken up a bit by a major addition to the Disney+ library and the strong performance of other recent hits.
“The Little Mermaid” made a big splash when it was added to Disney+ on Sept. 6, swimming its way up to second place in its debut week. Meanwhile, the Star Wars series “Ahsoka” continued to hold its spot in the top half of the chart, coming in fourth for the week.
“Special Ops: Lioness” has been a surprise hit for Paramount+. The show has been on the charts for six consecutive weeks, falling one spot in the week to fifth. Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” in its third season, found itself in eighth this week. And Amazon Prime Video’s big-budget fantasy epic “The Wheel of Time” made it onto the charts in tenth.
Of course, Netflix would not be denied, with five entries total, including “Virgin River.” The manga adaptation “One Piece” continued to build buzz, rising from fifth place to third. “Love Again,” the rom-com featuring Celine Dion as herself, stayed on the charts for a second week coming in sixth. The prior week’s chart topper, action series “Who is Erin Carter?”, fell to seventh from No. 1, and the teen comedy “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” was Netflix’s final entry, in ninth after last week’s second place.
The top linear programs of the week showed scripted TV creeping back into the charts. Even though both episodes were reruns, the long-running programs “Criminal Minds” (ION) and “Chicago Fire” (CBS) managed to crack the top 10. It will be interesting to see how reruns fare as we get deeper into a fall TV season with delayed premieres.
At the moment though, America really loves its talent. NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” kept its run at the top going for an eighth consecutive week, while capturing three of the top four spots.
Fox had a strong showing for its competition series in the week as well, with the Season 10 debut of “The Masked Singer” entering the list in sixth, and a late-season episode of “Masterchef USA” in seventh.
Rounding out the rest of our linear top 10 were “Big Brother” (CBS) in second, “American Ninja Warrior” (NBC) in fifth, and “Wheel of Fortune (ABC) in tenth.
Cole Strain is the vice president of measurement products at Samba TV, a WrapPRO partner. Click here for more data and analysis from Samba TV.
