Netflix’s final Upside Down chapter averaged 32.9 million viewers over 35 days, making it the most-watched series of the 2025–26 season — and exposing just how dominant streaming has become over broadcast.
The Upside Down swallowed television whole.
When Nielsen released its 35-day multiplatform numbers for the full 2025–26 TV season, the verdict wasn’t close. Stranger Things — in its final season, saying goodbye after years of pop culture dominance — averaged 32.9 million viewers, making it not just the most-watched streaming series of the year, but the most-watched show on any platform, full stop. No broadcast drama. No cable institution. Nothing.
It’s a number that deserves a beat of silence.
The last time a scripted show moved those kinds of numbers in an apples-to-apples comparison, the streaming-versus-linear debate was still theoretical. Netflix introduced the 35-day multiplatform data last season, and for the first time we actually had a fair fight. Stranger Things won it by a mile.
Netflix’s His & Hers was runner-up at 25.6 million — another streaming title. It wasn’t until third place that a broadcast show appeared: CBS’s Marshals, the first Taylor Sheridan Yellowstone-universe entry to air on traditional television, landed 20.7 million viewers. That’s a testament to the Sheridan empire as much as anything else.
The rest of the top 10 is almost entirely streaming. Landman on Paramount+ at 19.8 million. Bridgerton on Netflix at 18.3 million. Tracker (CBS/Paramount+) at 16.4 million. High Potential at 16.0 million. HBO Max’s The Pitt at 13.8 million. And a Netflix true crime documentary about Sean Combs — 20.6 million — that basically muscled its way into the third slot just by being the story everyone couldn’t stop talking about.
The Comeback Stories
If there’s one narrative this season demanded we pay attention to, it’s the resurrection of Dancing With the Stars.
The ABC celebrity competition grew its multiplatform audience from 7.1 million last season to 9.8 million this year. That’s a 38% jump. The TikTok-ification of the show — viral moments, controversy casting, obsessive fan voting — has done something most industry veterans said was impossible: it has made a 20-year-old format feel urgent again. In the live+7 adults 18–49 chart, DWTS was the single highest-rated entertainment show of the entire broadcast season, with a 1.48 rating. Above Survivor. Above everything.
The Pitt is the other story worth telling. A year ago, the HBO Max medical drama didn’t even crack the top 100 in total viewers — landing at No. 51 among adults 18–49. Season 2 runs it into a top-ten position with 13.8 million, and it doesn’t even air on HBO’s linear channel anymore. That’s what genuine word-of-mouth still looks like.
Peacock and Apple TV also made genuine inroads. Peacock placed All Her Fault, The Traitors, and The ‘Burbs in the top 100; a year ago it had nothing. Apple added Shrinking and Pluribus alongside Severance. Small gains, but the direction is right.
And revivals worked. The revived Scrubs was the season’s top-rated new comedy among adults 18–49. The Malcolm in the Middle revisit, Life’s Still Unfair, pulled 5.8 million multiplatform viewers. Peacock’s The ‘Burbs reimagining with Keke Palmer landed at No. 74. Nostalgia, it turns out, isn’t dead — it just needed better execution.
The Cancellation Crimes
Here’s where it gets genuinely uncomfortable.
Netflix’s Boots pulled 6.5 million 35-day viewers. CBS’s Watson drew 6.4 million. Netflix’s The Abandons hit 5.8 million. CBS’s DMV managed 5.7 million. All four shows made the top 100. All four were canceled.
Watson outperformed Elsbeth. Boots drew more viewers than Scarpetta. Neither got renewed. The stated reasons ranged from budget overruns to declining episode-to-episode momentum — and in the case of Boots, there were whispers in the trades about political considerations that nobody in the industry was willing to go on record about. It’s the kind of cancellation math that has always frustrated creators, but lately it feels less like economics and more like something murkier.
The Low That Hurts
The quietest disaster in the numbers is hiding in plain sight.
60 Minutes — in its 58th season, still one of the most powerful pieces of journalism on American television — sits at No. 27 with 9.7 million viewers. That’s actually remarkable staying power for a newsmagazine in 2026. And yet CBS is in the process of dismantling it.
The network that canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and is now remaking the editorial DNA of 60 Minutes under new boss Bari Weiss managed to do this while the show was still a legitimate audience draw. That’s not a ratings story. That’s a values story.
