‘Squid Game,’ ‘Matlock’ and More TV Ratings MVPs of 2024-25

If there was a theme coming out of May’s upfronts, it’s that everyone — from long-standing broadcast networks to new(ish) streaming players — wants a piece of the televised sports business. NBC is going all in on its new NBA contract next season, Netflix and YouTube will have exclusive NFL games, and there is seemingly a sports documentary for every corner of fandom.

While live sports are top of mind for everyone and the NFL (still and seemingly forever) rules broadcast ratings, viewers also spent a ton of time in the 2024-25 season with dramas, comedies and unscripted series. Several first-year shows became hits this season (hello, Matlock, High Potential and Adolescence), while returning veterans proved their worth in big ways (looking at you, Reacher).

With the September-to-May season now wrapped, here’s a look at the most valuable players, rookies of the year — and some disappointing performers — at a number of networks and streamers.

(Seven-day linear ratings figures for the season are through May 11; 35-day multi-platform numbers are as of late March.)

ABC

MVP and Rookie of the Year: High Potential. The procedural starring Kaitlin Olson as a highly intelligent cleaning woman-turned-police consultant is ABC’s No. 2 show (behind Monday Night Football) in Nielsen’s linear ratings. It’s also a huge show on streaming, tying for second place among all network series in cross-platform, 35-day ratings with more than 16 million viewers per episode.

Most Improved: Will Trent. In its third year, the show has grown every season so far in linear ratings; its seven-day audience before streaming is up by about 3 percent year to year at 6.82 million viewers. Across all platforms over 35 days, Will Trent grows to 11.6 million viewers, ranking 17th among all original series (including streaming shows) for the season.

In a slump: The Bachelor franchise. In the fall, The Golden Bachelorette fell well short of The Golden Bachelor’s ratings from 2023, and the most recent Bachelor season is also down by double digits among both all viewers and adults 18-49. Amid off-camera turmoil, ABC scrapped this summer’s edition of The Bachelorette and currently doesn’t have The Bachelor on its lineup for 2025-26 (though Bachelor in Paradise and a second Golden Bachelor season are on deck for summer and fall).

Apple TV+

MVP: Severance. Three years between seasons is a looong time, but the show’s audience was more than ready. The mind-bending drama delivered Apple TV+’s best performance for a series since Ted Lasso in 2023, staying in Nielsen’s top 10 original streaming series rankings for all 10 weeks of its season (and one more after it ended).

Rookie of the Year(?): The Studio. This is admittedly a vibes-based pick. The movie-business comedy starring and co-created by Seth Rogen has strong reviews and a devoted audience within the industry, but as of late April it had not cracked Nielsen’s streaming rankings (and Apple doesn’t share any viewing data for its shows).

CBS

MVP: Tracker. The second-year series starring Justin Hartley has finished first among all network shows (excluding sports) in both of its seasons. In 2024-25, it’s the only non-sports broadcast show to reach 10 million viewers before streaming (it’s at 10.97 million). Five weeks of cross-platform viewing pushes its total to 17.5 million viewers.

Rookies of the Year: Matlock and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage. The Kathy Bates-led Matlock started big and never really faded, clocking better than 16 million cross-platform viewers for the season. Georgie & Mandy, a spinoff of Young Sheldon and the third show in the ever-expanding Big Bang Theory universe, drew 12.1 million multi-platform viewers, tying its Thursday night lead-out, Ghosts, as the most-watched comedies on broadcast or cable.

Cap casualties: The Equalizer, FBI: International and FBI: Most Wanted. By ratings alone, all three shows would be no-brainer pickups at networks other than CBS. But the network routinely has the most-watched canceled series each year as it looks to save where it can and periodically freshen up its primetime schedule; this year, The Equalizer and the two FBI spinoffs have that unfortunate distinction.

Disney+

MVP: Bluey. The show that has legions of American kids saying “Nawr” is not a Disney+ original, but it is unquestionably a streaming juggernaut. The Australian import was far and away the most streamed series of 2024 in the United States and is holding onto that title so far in 2025. Bluey is on a 134-week streak on the Nielsen streaming charts, having last fallen outside the top 10 in September 2022.

Crunch time performer: Andor. The best-reviewed Star Wars series also notched a series high in viewing time for the week of its season two premiere in late April (the last week for which streaming data is available). It’s a needed boost for one of Disney+’s signature franchises, because …

In a slump: Marvel and Star Wars. Before Andor, it had been a rough season for Marvel and Star Wars shows on Disney+. Agatha All Along made Nielsen’s list of top original streaming shows several times and spiked in the week of its finale, but Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and Daredevil: Born Again both failed to chart during their runs, and the animated Marvel show What If …? made it only once during its third season.

Fox

MVP and Rookie of the Year: Doc. The medical drama starring Molly Parker nearly doubled its audience (2.33 million to 4.6 million viewers) over seven days in linear ratings, then added a few million more viewers with streaming. In renewing the series in February, Fox said the premiere episode had drawn in some 16 million viewers, including on-air repeats, streaming and other delayed viewing over six weeks.

Rookie roster cut: Rescue: Hi-Surf. Fox placed a big bet on the Hawaii-set drama about lifeguards, giving it a post-NFL premiere in September and initially tabbing it for the audience-boosting slot after the Super Bowl. After the show got off to a soft start, however, the network pulled it off of Super Bowl Sunday (The Floor aired there instead). Hi-Surf was canceled in early May.

HBO/Max

MVP: The White Lotus. Season three of Mike White’s chronicle of overprivileged Americans visiting the five-star resort chain/homicide magnet set a string of series bests throughout its run. It had the show’s most-watched premiere and finale to date, with several other first-night highs in between. As of the day after its April 6 finale, season three was averaging 16 million cross-platform viewers, a number that has only grown since. HBO measures cross-platform viewing for its shows over 90 days; the finale marked day 49 of that period.

Rookie of the Year: The Pitt. Max’s real-time hospital drama was well-reviewed and seemed to gather word-of-mouth momentum throughout its 15-episode season (which is now an unusually long order for a streaming show). The final four weeks of the season — plus one more after the finale — made Nielsen’s streaming chart, with a high of 852 million minutes the week its finale debuted.

Hulu

MVPs: Only Murders in the Building and The Handmaid’s Tale. OMITB has been Hulu’s most consistent original series, charting nearly every week it has debuted original episodes across its four seasons. Season four last fall was no different, ranking in Nielsen’s top 10 original streaming shows for 11 straight weeks. The Handmaid’s Tale, meanwhile, had a strong start to its final season, averaging 788 million viewing minutes over its first three weeks — a 42 percent improvement over the same time span for season five in 2022.

Rookie of the Year: Paradise. The thriller from creator Dan Fogelman charted all six weeks it released episodes and had a very consistent run. It drew between 476 million and 566 million minutes of watch time for the first five weeks before a finale-week jump to 705 million.

Bench performers: Library series. Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers and The Rookie, all of which have extensive catalogs, are near-constant presences in the weekly streaming top 10 for acquired series. So are several shows Hulu shares with other streamers, including Grey’s Anatomy (Netflix) and Law & Order: SVU (Peacock).

NBC

MVP: Sunday Night Football. This is not a surprise pick in any way, but it’s impossible not to bestow this honor on SNF. The weekly NFL showcase was the most-watched primetime network series for the 14th straight season — the longest such streak since the beginning of Nielsen’s primetime charts 75 years ago. Across NBC and Peacock, Sunday Night Football averaged 21.6 million viewers this season.

Rookie of the Year: Happy’s Place. Friday night is not usually the place you’d expect a ratings success story, but the night is not the dead zone it once was, and Happy’s Place built a solid audience there after NBC had made quiet efforts to establish a comedy block there in recent seasons. Happy’s Place, starring Reba McEntire and Belissa Escobedo, drew a solid 4.54 million viewers before streaming, making it an easy renewal.

Hall of Fame: Dick Wolf. The mega-producer’s track record is unimpeachable, and even deep, deep into the life of his Chicago and Law & Order franchises, they’re still delivering. After Sunday Night Football, five of NBC’s seven most-watched shows come from Wolf (the two weekly editions of The Voice are the others). Between them, the five series have produced a staggering 1,811 episodes to date.

Netflix

MVP: Squid Game. Season two of the Korean hit had the two biggest streaming weeks of the season — 4.92 billion and 4.6 billion minutes in late December and early January. It averaged 27.1 million viewers over 35 days, according to Nielsen, the most for any show on any platform in 2024-25 (and a likely blockbuster final season is set for late June).

Rookies of the Year: Adolescence, Nobody Wants This and The Residence. Adolescence, the intense British miniseries with each episode unfolding in a single shot, ranks second on Nielsen’s cross-platform list for the season with 19 million viewers over 35 days. On the other end of the tonal spectrum, rom-com Nobody Wants This led a strong Netflix comedy roster with 15.2 million viewers over five weeks. The Residence has shown more staying power in the weekly streaming rankings than either of those shows, however. It’s charted for six straight weeks — longer than any other first-year Netflix show since September.

Paramount+/Showtime

MVP: Taylor Sheridan. Four of the prolific creator and showrunner’s Paramount+ series — Landman, 1923, Tulsa King and Lioness — spent multiple weeks on the streaming charts this season. No other producer can lay claim to having such a tight grip on the top of a single streamer’s rankings. Oh, and the show that kickstarted Sheridan and Paramount’s mutually lucrative relationship, Yellowstone, also had a record-breaking season on cable’s Paramount Network.

Rookie of the Year: Landman. Sheridan’s series about the West Texas oil business, starring Billy Bob Thornton, was the first Paramount+ show to draw more than a billion viewing minutes in a single week (1923 followed suit later in the season). The show peaked with 1.38 billion minutes in the week leading up to its season finale.

Most Improved: Yellowjackets. After not cracking the streaming top 10 at all during its second season in 2023, the Showtime drama did so four times in season three. The series also scored its most-watched season finale to date worldwide.

Peacock

MVP: The Traitors. The competition show hosted by Alan Cumming had its biggest U.S. season so far, racking up considerably more viewing time than season two in early 2024. The five times it made the top 10 original streaming series charts during the season marked the five biggest weeks in its history.

Rookie of the Year: The Day of the Jackal. The thriller starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch never hit the top 10 of the Nielsen streaming charts, but it kept accumulating viewers to the point where it surpassed all other first-year dramas on Peacock, the streamer says.

Prime Video

MVP: Reacher. The series about a big man (played by Alan Ritchson) had a big impact on the streaming landscape with its third season. The show averaged 18.1 million viewers over 35 days and spent nine consecutive weeks in the top 10.

Rookies of the Year: Beast Games and Cross. Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson brought some of his massive YouTube following to Prime Video with Beast Games, a competition show that charted for seven weeks and is one of the platform’s most successful unscripted shows — earning it a two-season renewal. Cross, based on James Patterson’s Alex Cross novels and starring Aldis Hodge, had two huge weeks after its binge release in November, justifying an early pickup of season two.