Americans streamed an extra 17 billion minutes of content in 2021 & here’s what we watched

Oh, 2021. It truly was a year for the books, especially when it came to streaming. So much so that Americans “streamed almost 15 million years worth of content in 2021.” What could possibly have been so engaging? Netflix of course! So here’s what American’s watched last year.

This data comes from Neilsen, the global TV, and movie rating firm. They used their massive reach in both streaming and traditional TV to figure out which names were most popular across a variety of streaming content- original shows, acquired shows, and movies. They also looked across a variety of streaming platforms.

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Recognize any of those top names? We’ll bet you do because pretty much all of them were all over everyone’s social feeds from Instagram to Twitter. Not only that but it shows just how big Netflix is in the streaming world especially when it comes to creating originals.

Now acquired content is perhaps more interesting because you can see the longevity of certain shows. For example, Criminal Minds which came in number 1 ran from 2005-2020 for a total of 15 seasons and clearly, people aren’t done with it yet.

When it came to streaming movies, kid’s movies were surprisingly high. This is part of an overall trend for 2021 which saw a rise in “mystery, drama, reality, and children’s programming.”

We’ll be curious to see what tops the 2022 charts. Especially with new shows and movies constantly on the horizon and a younger streaming base which by the way was predominantly between the ages of 18-34 at least on Netflix.