☀️NETFLIX vs. AMAZON: Lessons from NIELSEN Top ’25 Movie List
SIRIUSXM gets ad tier / SEARCHLIGHT sets Longoria pic / BLUMHOUSE trims staff
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Tuesday, July 15, 2025.
Where sure, having top-ranked teams with 2 of the biggest stars in your sport in America’s top 2 cities helps . . . but nothing quite signifies MLB’s popularity resurgence over the past 2 years like having a guy nicknamed Big Dumper win $1M just for hitting homers.
AND: EMMY noms come out today at 11:30 a.m. ET — Katey Rich and Chris Rosen from Prestige Junkie will be live-streaming analysis here on Substack! Here are your early noms to snack on in the meantime:
REALITY COMPETITION: The Traitors, RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Amazing Race, Survivor and Top Chef.
LATE NIGHT: Kimmel, Colbert and Daily Show . . . with at least a Wakeup honorable mention for Seth Meyers for an entertaining campaign.
THEN: Sundance’s last dance in Utah will be held Jan. 22 thru Feb. 1.
ALSO: Sean Astin will run for SAG-AFTRA President. Current Prez Fran Drescher has not officially commented either way if she plans to run again. Elections begin later this summer, with voting ending on Sept. 12.
HUZZAH!: To Tea Leoni and Tim Daly, who got married earlier this month.
PLUS: Tickets for the Canelo vs. Crawford boxing event in September in Vegas go on presale Thursday here.
AH: Move over Jeff & Lauren, it’s Emily’s turn to piss off the Italian locals — Emily in Paris will shoot in Venice next month for the new season (it’ll clear out 2 days before the film festival starts). Come on, Italy, you know you love us. 🤌
OH: META is now allowing INSTA posts to be surfaced in GOOGLE searches. Ah, just in time for the AI revolution. Nice work, everyone.
HA: The New York Comedy Fest announced its talent lineup for the fest running Nov. 7 to Nov. 16, including Louis C.K., Margaret Cho, Alex Edelman and Pete Holmes, and Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris will lead a Strangers with Candy reunion. Tix go on sale here on July 21.
HAHA: Saudi Arabia is enlisting some pretty big names for its inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival this fall (Sept. 26 to Oct. 10) — Kevin Hart, Tom Segura, Pete Davidson, Russell Peters, Jim Jefferies, Whitney Cummings, Zarna Garg and Jessica Kirson are all in talks — because as we all know, the Saudi government is best known for its sense of humor.
WME is consulting to put the fest / talent together, with longtime Just For Laughs figure Bruce Hills also producing.
Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the country’s General Entertainment Authority, is behind the fest and also working with TKO on a boxing event promotion.
Kevin Hart and Russell Peters have already been performing in Saudi, and Abu Dhabi and Dubai have already held their own comedy fests in the greater region.
WELL: Office snacks, you had a good run — but in a move that I gotta say is kinda ironic for a guy who keeps a DIET COKE button in his office, Trump’s transformative tax bill also eliminates the corporate tax exemption for office snacks come 2026.
THEN: Here is your June NIELSEN Gauge report for viewing on U.S. TVs, and yes, YOUTUBE hit a new high (12.8% share of streaming, +0.3% from May).
AS ALWAYS: Keep in mind that viewership for apps like MAX, PEACOCK and PAR+ that happens via subscribers who access the apps through AMAZON Channels or ROKU CHANNEL gets counted in those respective numbers — and not MAX, PEACOCK or PAR+.
Pretty weak showing for Broadcast TV — the first time it’s been under a 20% share.
The linear Broadcast/Cable TV combo (42%) was again below streaming (46%).
42% of Streaming’s viewership gain in June vs. May was due to increased NETFLIX viewing.
Mainly thanks to the return of Ginny & Georgia, and the popularity of linear TV shows Animal Kingdom and Blindspot (Squid Game was only available for 3 days of the month).
Kids (6-17 year olds), freshly on summer vacation, also gave a boost to overall viewership — with 2/3 of their TV view time happening on streaming.
🎬 Top 20 U.S. Streaming Movies of H1 2025 — The Real Order
The folks at NIELSEN released the Top 20 movies streamed on TVs in the U.S. in the first half of the year . . . but in customary NIELSEN style — they only gave the minutes viewed. Ahem.
So — let’s fix that! Here’s how things look when you consider, ya know, how long each movie was . . . just like I do for movies on NETFLIX each week globally, and what DISNEY does for its occasional numbers reporting as well.
i.e. Just because War & Peace has the most pages doesn’t make it the most popular book.
The results are not only dramatically different — they also tell you a lot of things that are driving strategy both in theatrical and streaming at the big players, so here’s what we got.