Nielsen numbers: ‘Stranger Things’ the most-watched streaming show in 2022; Disney+’s ‘Encanto’ the most-streamed movie

With January nearly over, Nielsen is looking back to 2022 and noted Stranger Things was the most-watched show of the year in the U.S.

According to numbers quoted by Variety, Americans took in some 52 billion minutes’ worth of adventures in the Upside Down in 2022, which the trade said was the most of any show since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, when audiences in lockdown binged 57.1 billion minutes of NBC’s The Office.

CBS’ NCIS was the second-most-watched show in the U.S. last year, with 38.1 billion minutes viewed on Netflix in 2022.

Netflix’s cartoon kid show CoComelon pulled in 37.8 billion minutes viewed, strong enough for third place.

Disney+’s Encanto had the honor of being the most-watched streaming movie of last year.

And if you needed convincing that we’re a country of couch potatoes, Nielsen said we watched 19.4 MILLION YEARS’ worth of content last year.

That’s up from the 15 million years’ worth of stuff we watched in 2021.