It seems audiences are more in the mood for some relatable cringe comedy than a galaxy-spanning adventure lately. For the week of December 7th, viewers officially clocked more time watching NBC's The Office than they did the Disney Plus smash hit The Mandalorian, and there is probably a good reason behind that statistic.
Nielsen has released their list of the week's top 10 most-viewed series on any streaming service, and to the surprise of likely very few, Netflix has dominated the numbers overall. The streaming giant can claim every show on the list except 2nd place, which was proudly taken by the Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian, streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. But even its impressive viewership wasn't enough to top that streaming go-to endorsed by Tinder profiles around the world, The Office.
The Office scored a massive 1.3 billion collective minutes of streaming among viewers, according to Nielsen's estimates. Meanwhile, the same week saw fans enjoying The Mandalorian for a slightly smaller but no less impressive 1 billion minutes. Since many streaming services don't release their official statistics, these numbers are mostly based on Nielsen's own educated estimates. (Though Netflix did put out its own feature on 2020's viewership trends, albeit without the actual numbers.) But considering the company has a long and respected history of documenting viewership in one way or another, odds are it's safe to assume they're generally on the right track.
Other notable entries on the list include The Crown (4th place with ~932 million minutes), Supernatural (6th place with ~774 million) and Schitt's Creek rounding things off at the 10th spot with ~621 million. Other series like Manhunt: Deadly Games and Big Mouth enjoyed their first week on the list at 5th and 9th place, respectively. It's worth repeating that, aside from The Mandalorian, every entry on the list comes from Netflix, even if they weren't originally on the service.
The reason behind The Office taking the top spot, or at least one of the reasons, may have something to do with the show's impending departure from Netflix in favor of NBC's Peacock streaming service. The hit series left Netflix on December 31st, and a good chunk of audiences already knew this during the week Nielsen studied for this list. The Office has long been one of the most popular choices to binge-watch on any given week, so the knowledge that it was moving to a new home most likely influenced many more people than usual to give it a watch one last time before the change. Not to mention Peacock will only offer the first 2 seasons of The Office in its free tier. This means that any newcomers to Peacock will have to pay extra to continue watching the entire series like they have been for so long.
But regardless of the reasons, it's still not surprising to see The Office claim that top spot. It's entirely possible this may be the last time it enjoys that prestige for a while, since Peacock is a relative newcomer to the streaming scene. It's hard to break people of the Netflix habit, but perhaps taking its most popular show will give Peacock a leg up.
Source: Variety