‘The Mandalorian’ vs. ‘The Boys’ vs. ‘Star Trek: Picard’ vs. ‘Tiger King’: What Was The Biggest Streaming Show of 2020?

Figuring out what was the most popular TV show in America in 2020 is tough. With movies, the cycle (generally) goes a little something like this: the movie comes out, everyone sees it, and then it drops off the radar. We can look at that initial buzz and have a fairly good idea what won the year. (It’s even easier with box office!)

In TV, though, a new show can come out and be super buzzy (The Queen’s Gambit) or folks can discover a new show during its fourth season and then watch it for weeks after (Ozark) or it could be a really old show that folks watch over and over (The Office).

That’s the challenge in trying tothe declare “this was the most popular show in 2020” in the streaming age. Unlike, say, back in 2019, when Game of Thrones was very clearly the most popular TV series, in 2020 we just don’t know. Toss in multiple data sources and no one standard measurement system and my task is fairly difficult. (Indeed, one service even said that Game of Thrones was still the most popular show in 2020!)

That uncertainty will make this fun, but just consider yourself forewarned that thar be confusing data waters ahead.

If you want to know my process, read my take on the most popular films of 2020 in the US. Today, I’ll review the top TV shows by streamer and pick a few final contenders. Along the way I’ll drop some data tidbits I came across. Finally, I’ll try to compare the final contenders to declare a winner.

Apple TV+: Mythic Quest, Defending Jacob and Ted Lasso

The theme of 2020 in entertainment was the same theme as everywhere: the global pandemic disrupted everything. For TV in particular, that meant stopping all production in March and not resuming until July, which even then was haphazard and uneven.

Given the long lead time to produce a TV show, this delay really hurt certain streamers, that hadn’t yet built up a library of potential shows. For example, Apple TV+ who had to delay subsequent seasons of shows like Dickinson or The Morning Show into 2021.

However, Apple TV+ was able to get a few shows finished. In May, Defending Jacob was well-received. Then, in August they released the buzzy new comedy Ted Lasso. Here’s what Reelgood says was Apple TV+’s biggest shows in Q3 of this year:

The other comedy that did well for them, earlier in the year, was Mythic Quest. The challenge with extrapolating from this data is we only know how well shows did on Apple’s platform, with no context. Given Apple TV+’s likely small size, likely none of these shows were truly contenders for the most popular show of the year. The good news for Apple is that, given their buzz, Apple TV+ may compete for this prize in 2021.

Apple TV+’s Final Contenders: None

CBS All-Access: Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek Discovery

CBS has slowly turned itself into the Star Trek streaming platform. While it seems like ages ago, Picard has been one of the buzzier streaming shows on TV. Discovery was a contender back in October as well. These series are both popular, but plagued by the problem that CBS All-Access still isn’t very big as a platform.

While it likely won’t win the year because of this, the more popular Picard will be CBS’ contender.

CBS All-Access Final Contender: Star Trek: Picard

Disney+ and Hulu: The Mandalorian

Unlike Netflix, which overwhelms by volume, Disney focuses on a few high profile projects to drive their buzz. Which meant they were even more susceptible to Covid-19 shuttering their production pipelines. (I believe Falcon and Winter Soldier has the chance to be the most popular show of 2021.)

Instead of three buzzy TV series, they were left with “only” another season of The Mandalorian. Of course, what a season it was. Of the shows competing for the top spot in this year’s competition, it’s one of five that has 200,000+ ratings on IDMb and a score above 8.5. (The others are Westworld, Dark, The Boys and The Queen’s Gambit.) It also “won the month” twice in my column. So it’s clearly a strong contender for this prize.

What about Disney’s adult streamer, Hulu? They had a fairly quiet year. Their buzziest show of all time is The Handmaid’s Tale, and it didn’t have a new season in 2020. None of their other TV shows really caught on. For Example, Devs was buzzy, but it had a weak performance in Google Trends. The emphasis at Disney is growing Disney+, not Hulu. We’ll see how this impacts Hulu in the years ahead.

Disney’s Final Contenders: The Mandalorian

HBO/HBO Max: Westworld, Perry Mason, Lovecraft Country, Raised by Wolves, The Undoing

Let’s start on the streaming-only side. Like Disney and Apple TV+, HBO Max didn’t have a lot of strong original programming. The buzziest show was probably Raised by Wolves. But with fewer than 3-8 million folks watching HBO Max last summer, it clearly wasn’t the most popular show in America.

On the traditional side of the house—old fashioned HBO—it’s complicated. All of their series are available on both their linear channel and now HBO Max. Yet, no service tracks or combines both ratings, so we don’t have a good look at the full viewership for HBO shows.

That leaves us to the mercy of HBO themselves. Overall, HBO had a good year for dramas, repeatedly claiming that its new shows were breaking records, from The Outsider to Perry Mason to Lovecraft Country to, lastly, The Undoing, which HBO claims was the biggest of them all.

We’ll take HBO at their word and give The Undoing the top prize.

Then there is Westworld. Like I said for The Mandalorian, Westworld has been a juggernaut of fan interest since it came out in 2016. It’s IMDb ratings are enviable. However, those ratings most likely came from its first and second seasons. Due to a lackluster second season, linear ratings for the flagship series have decayed over time:

However, it is still buzzy enough of a show that it will make the final list.

HBO’s Final Contender: Westworld and The Undoing

Netflix: Too many to count

Netflix makes a lot of television. If we go by their own reporting—which I call “datecdotes”—which are global, again—here are the top ten films from this year. I’ve also added the “score” for every time a film made the top ten list in the US in the first 28 days:

This is exactly what I meant when I said TV was complicated. Globally, “only” 29 million folks watched season 3 of Ozark around the world, clearly falling behind season 4 of Money Heist (La Casa de Papel). But if you zoom in on America, it may have been the most popular Netflix show. Here is Nielsen’s Top Ten list by total minutes watched:

The explanation is likely that some Netflix shows travel the globe very well and some don’t. (And some shows, like Ozark, may get a lot of viewership but not a lot of social conversation because the demographics that watch are less likely to use Twitter.)

To determine Netflix’s biggest series, we’ll use the same criteria as before, taking every TV series that “won” a metric and making it a contender.

• Nielsen says Ozark or The Office was the top show in 2020 by total minutes consumed, so both will make the list.
• Tiger King is the largest datecdote after Money Heist. IMDb also gave Tiger King the top crown among documentaries. So it makes the list.
• The Queen’s Gambit has Netflix’s highest IMDb score and 200K reviews, so it makes the cut, too.
• We’ll also put Bridgerton into the mix. Since it came out late in the year, it wasn’t eligible for many of the total year metrics. At 63 million viewers, it’s very close to Tiger King in terms of global datecdotes.

I’m leaving out Money Heist, which seems very clearly one of Netflix’s most popular global shows, but just doesn’t resonate in the US. It doesn’t show up on any other measure of popularity that is US-only.

There were a few close calls, but everything can’t make the final list. The Crown likely did well again, but lagged Bridgerton. Schitt’s Creek and The Umbrella Academy were also popular according to Netflix’s top ten list and Nielsen’s ratings. Consider them all honorable mentions.

Netflix’s Final Contender: The Office, Ozark, Tiger King, The Queen’s Gambit, Bridgerton

Amazon Prime Video: Films: Hunters, Upload, Hanna and The Boys

Prime Video probably had its most consistent year in terms of releasing high quality TV series. The year started off with Hunters starring Al Pacino, Upload and another season of Bosch—quietly their longest running show—in the second part of the year, the buzzy Hanna in the third part of the year, and then The Boys, which I have said twice now is pretty clearly their most popular show.

Here’s a look at that interest over the year:

Four of those series actually made it onto Nielsen’s weekly top ten list, Hunters, Upload, The Boys, and Hanna. Of the four, The Boys was the most popular. That accomplishment is even bigger considering it was released weekly. IMDb called it their most popular TV show of the year according to their MovieMeter (which measures webpage traffic).

(The big potential caveat here is that IMDb and Prime Video are both owned by Amazon.)

Prime Video’s Final Contenders: The Boys

So Who Was the Winner of 2020?

This leaves us ten contenders, and like in film, it’s tough to figure out was actually the most watched. If we’re going by simply the most minutes consumed, The Office wins that crown, with nearly twice as many hours watched in the US as the next biggest series. (This is also a big hole of viewing that Netflix will try to fill, among other things, with Seinfeld in 2021.) But let’s leave that aside and focus on the most popular new shows.

As always, let’s look at the five most popular series via Google Trends:

This is helpful, but not definitive. Tiger King had the highest peak—back when everyone couldn’t stop talking about it on social media—but The Mandalorian sustained interest for longer. Meanwhile, Bridgerton also had a strong finish to the year. (The Undoing really was HBO’s buzziest show, but was bumped off this list by Ozark.)

Either Ozark or The Mandalorian is probably the runner-up. Folks like The Mandalorian the best (the most IMDb ratings and reviews), but it just didn’t have as many viewers as Tiger King. Ozark had the best performance on Nielsen’s weekly ratings, but that is probably a function of how many episodes it had to view (30 episodes) compared to Tiger King (8 episodes). Still, if any show was quietly the biggest show in America, it was Ozark. Which means the buzziest show of lock down was probably the biggest…

Final Winner? Tiger King!

Ultimately, the top prize has to go to Tiger King. It was on the Netflix Top 10 list the longest, has the most minutes viewed after Ozark (with many fewer episodes) and had a higher datecdote. So the buzz did translate to viewership.

I said yesterday that Hamilton makes sense as the 2020 film of the year. And you know what? So does Tiger King. Let’s not pretend 2020 was normal by any means, and Tiger King is the perfect champion for the weirdness of 2020.

(The Entertainment Strategy Guy writes under this pseudonym at his eponymous website. A former exec at a streaming company, he prefers writing to sending emails/attending meetings, so he launched his own website. Sign up for his newsletter at Substack for regular thoughts and analysis on the business, strategy and economics of the media and entertainment industry.)

Watch Tiger King on Netflix