Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Little House On The Prairie,’ ‘Gunsmoke’ Cited By Nielsen As Top Legacy Streaming Titles Of 2024
Streaming gets attention for buzzy originals, but viewing of classics accounts for a large chunk of the total audience.
Nielsen acknowledged as much by including shoutouts to two legacy titles, Little House on the Prairie and Gunsmoke, in its recap of 2024 viewing.
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Little House racked up 13.3 billion minutes of viewing time on Peacock, while Gunsmoke collected 10.23 billion minutes across Peacock and Paramount+, according to the company.
The two classic series were named winners of Nielsen’s newly coined “ARTEY Awards,” whose name is both a nod to company founder Arthur C. Nielsen and an acronym for Audience Rated Television Entertainment of the Year. Fallout and Nobody Wants This took home ARTEYs as the most-viewed new original drama and comedy series, respectively, while Bluey, Bridgerton and Moana captured awards for top overall streaming. The Big Bang Theory was recognized as “most-binged” title of the year.
Viewing of Little House, notably, topped the levels of any new original series last year, with adults ages 35 to 64 making up 63% of the total audience. The series, which marked the 50th anniversary of its premiere last year (it ran until 1983), also over-indexed among Black viewers, who made up more than 17% of the total, according to Nielsen.
Gunsmoke, which until The Simpsons held the crown as TV’s longest-running prime-time series, may have benefited from an overall uptick of viewer interest in Westerns during the current Yellowstone era. It also has two decades of episodes available for viewing, which helps bulk up the overall numbers.
Adapted for television in 1955, the series ran for 20 seasons on CBS, ranking as a top Nielsen-rated show for several of those years. Its audience today, almost 70 years after its debut, unsurprisingly skews toward the 50-and-older demographic. Black viewers accounted for 36% of its total viewing time.
Classic TV series are finding new audiences across streaming, especially on free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels and on free services like Tubi or Pluto TV. While Nielsen includes free platforms in its monthly Gauge reports, its 2024 recap focused on subscription services.
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