‘Gen V’ Breaks Onto Nielsen Streaming Originals Chart After 3-Episode Debut; ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Narrows In On ‘Suits’

Watch out, Suits. Grey’s Anatomy is coming for the Nielsen streaming crown.

The USA Network legal drama easily scored another week atop the overall streaming list with 1.43B minutes viewed across Netflix and Peacock from September 25 to October 1. But, that’s down about 20% from its viewership the week prior. The series has seen a slow but steady decline in viewership over the month of September, which could indicate that audiences are wrapping up their binge.

That would make sense, considering the series hit Netflix in June and blew up over the summer, giving audiences about three months to make their way through the first eight seasons (Season 9 is only on Peacock).

But, the story of the week is that Grey’s Anatomy made a significant jump to second place with 958M viewing minutes on Netflix. That’s up from the 779M viewing minutes it drew the week prior. The series is somewhat of a staple on the Nielsen streaming charts, but it doesn’t usually rack up such high viewership.

Season 19, which is the latest season to air on broadcast since Season 20 has been delayed due to the writers and actors strikes, landed on the streamer in June. So it’s unclear what, exactly, could be causing this resurgence for the medical procedural. Maybe Suits viewers are looking for another long-running procedural to latch on to.

Love Is Blind Season 5 kicked off on September 22, and by the next week it had generated 943M viewing minutes. Those three new episodes helped boost the series to No. 3 on the overall charts for this week, with viewership skewed primarily toward the 18-34 audience, according to Nielsen.

Nielsen also once again stressed how staggered release strategies appear to be working much better for streamers than binge releases — which Love Is Blind is a great example of. Other examples the company cited were Ahsoka and Only Murders in the Building, both of which were up week-over-week with the release of new episodes.

Both of the Disney-produced series remained on the Streaming Originals list for another week, alongside The Morning Show and The Wheel of Time from Prime Video. Though, the latter two declined in viewership week-over-week.

A new entrant to the Streaming Originals list is Gen V, the college-set spinoff of The Boys, which the streamer recently called its “most acquisitive new Original series of 2023” as it renewed the series for a Season 2. With just three episodes available, the series racked up 374M minutes viewed, coming in at No. 8 on the originals chart.

Nielsen reports that a quarter of Gen V viewers had watched Thursday Night Football the night before, suggesting they were influenced by the promo the series got during the game.

Here is the full Top 10 for overall and originals, with streaming service, title, number of episodes (“1″=feature film or series premiere) and minutes of viewing: