Nielsen Analytics discovered that "Lucifer," "Squid Game," "Luca," and "CoComelon" were among the most popular streaming programming titles for Black, Asian, and Hispanic viewers in 2021. In the areas of original, acquired, and feature programming, Disney Plus' "Moana" and "Raya and the Last Dragon" and Netflix's "Manifest," "Criminal Minds," and "You" were other SVOD winners with these three demographic groups.
"Squid Game" stood out among the originals because it was one of the most popular shows among Asian, Hispanic, and African American viewers. When Nielsen analysts looked at the demographic data even more closely, they discovered that the Korean-language version of the dystopian, anti-capitalist thriller received 45 percent viewership in Asian homes and one-third of its viewing minutes in Hispanic households. Between the ages of 18 and 34,The Korean-language version with English subtitles accounted for 29% of total viewership. Another 2021 hotshot, "CoComelon," racked up 33.3 billion minutes of screen time across a variety of SVOD channels (not just Netflix, but also Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube). The multicultural show has broad appeal, with 56 percent of its audience coming from Black, Hispanic, or Asian households, and is likely one of the most-streamed kids series ever, according to Nielsen.
Along with its 2021 demo data, Nielsen released its weekly SVOD content ratings for Jan. 3 through Jan. 9. A week after the passing of the iconic comedian and actor Betty White, Hulu’s “The Golden Girls” cracked the top 10 acquired programs list, with 384 million minutes of view time; 41% of the sitcom’s audience was aged between 35 and 49. Other acquired content highlights for the first full week of January 2022 included “CoComelon” (per usual), “NCIS,” “Criminal Minds,” “Seinfeld,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Heartland,” “Supernatural,” “The Thundermans” and “Shameless,” all of which are available to view on Netflix.
“Cobra Kai” and “Encanto” were the first and second-place victors of the top 10 overall programming list, and were also No. 1 in the original and movie charts (respectively). The “Karate Kid” spinoff punched in over two billion viewing minutes, down slightly from the previous week, with one-third of its audience in the 35-49 age range and 40% of its viewership from multicultural households. Walt Disney Animation Studios’ triumphant musical fantasy hit “Encanto” was the second-most-streamed title this week with about 1.5 billion viewing minutes, with 38% of its audience between the ages of 2 and 11. Other top programming the week of Jan. 3-9 include Disney Plus’ “The Book of Boba Fett,” which doubled its viewership from the series premiere with 563 million minutes of view time, and Netflix’s “Ozark,” which notched over 300 million viewing minutes as anticipation for its new season’s drop on Netflix (Jan. 21) began to grow.
