While I think the USA Network was a great home for shows like Suits, White Collar and Monk in its day, I do wonder if, in retrospect, Suits would have done amazing on network television like NBC. It was glossy and fun, a breezy hour-long drama with attractive people and a diverse cast. In this sliding-doors situation, I have to think that NBC probably would have canceled it though, which is why USA was a better home – Suits was allowed the time and space to tell its story and pace itself the right way without NBC executives breathing down their necks. Still, I’d like to know if NBC does have any regrets about not picking up Suits back in 2010-11. Anyway, the story in 2023 is still that people are rediscovering Suits, so much so that the Suits Renaissance is practically responsible for fueling what Deadline refers to as a “grim milestone.”
It’s a streaming world, and we’re just living in it. It is no secret that streaming dominates the TV landscape, but Nielsen measured a new (and somewhat grim) milestone for broadcast and cable in July’s edition of the company’s monthly state of TV report, The Gauge. For the first time, linear TV viewership accounted for less than 50% of all TV usage in a measurement month.
According to Nielsen, broadcast and cable each represented record low shares at 20% and 29.6% of total TV usage, respectively, to combine for a linear television total of 49.6%. Compared to this time last year, broadcast viewing was down 5.4%, and cable viewing was down 12.5%.
On a month-over-month basis, broadcast viewing fell 3.6% in July and cable viewing was down 2.9%. Nielsen reports that dramas remained the top broadcast genre, but the top programs of the month were actually ABC World News Tonight and the MLB All Star Game on Fox. As for cable, sports took the cake as usual, with ESPN’s Home Run Derby and College World Series at the top.
Then, there was streaming. Viewing across streamers increase by 2.9% from June to July and has ballooned 25.3% in the past year. It now represents 38.7% of total TV usage, which is a new record-high for the second consecutive month.
Netflix was a major contributor to the increase in streaming viewership (with a 4.2% increase in its share of total TV usage), assisted by none other than Suits. The legal dramedy has taken over screens across the U.S. since it debuted on Netflix and Peacock simultaneously in June, breaking Nielsen records with nearly 4B minutes viewed in just one measurement week.
In July, Suits accounted for 18B viewing minutes. To put that into perspective, Nielsen says that Stranger Things also managed 18B viewing minutes last July with the conclusion of Season 4. Put more plainly, people are watching a lot of Suits.
[From Deadline]
Basically, people would rather watch Suits on Netflix or Peacock rather than whatever is scheduled on NBC, CBS and ABC. And for the first time, more people are opting out of network and cable television than opting in. I mean… my TV is almost always set on Tennis Channel, the Food Network or the Cooking Channel, but I get it. I also get why this has become the Summer of Suits – people enjoy watching completed, multi-season TV shows. Over 18 billion minutes of Suits watched on streaming… I can’t even comprehend those kinds of numbers. Definitely wish that Meghan, the cast and the writers were being paid residuals for it.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, ‘Suits’/Instagram.
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