‘Young Sheldon’ Rides ‘Suits’-Like Dual-Platform Approach to Streaming Success

While we’ve certainly dinged Warner Bros. Discovery’s retreat to “arms-dealer” stature and the growth implications that has had on Max, the strategy just might have its first signature win with Young Sheldon.

Debuting its first five seasons domestically on Netflix Nov. 24, while simultaneously streaming seasons 1-6 on Max, and readying the strike-delayed seventh and final season for CBS starting on Feb. 15, the Chuck Lorre comedy spinoff seems to have been the most-watched scripted show in subscription streaming during the holidays.

According to Nielsen, Young Sheldon was the most streamed show in the U.S. for the week of November 27-December 3, racking up 1.846 billion minutes of engagement.

That’s the most recent Nielsen data we have, given the research company’s five-week delay. But Young Sheldon did rank in the top 10 for English-language shows throughout December on Netflix's weekly Global Top 10 tracker.

Not only was the Warner Bros. Television-produced series consistently a top 10 show in the U.S. on Netflix throughout 2023’s final month, it has also been a top performer for several years in international Netflix markets ranging from the U.K. to Australia to Bangladesh.

Not surprisingly, some are already comparing Young Sheldon's early multiplatform U.S. streaming run to NBCUniversal’s Suits, which drew a consistently huge audience last summer while running simultaneously on Netflix and Peacock.

Notably, Young Sheldon accumulated a very binge-able 131 episodes through six seasons vs. 133 for Suits.

But as Nielsen noted, Young Sheldon is a half-hour comedy vs. the one-hour legal dramedy Suits, making the former that much quicker to burn through for new streaming enthusiasts.

Also read: 'Suits' a Massive Summer Hit? In a Global Streaming Business, Not So Much

Conversely, another Nielsen note surprised us a little — only 20% of the streaming audience for Young Sheldon from November 27-December 3 was older than 50, vs. more than 50% for Suits during its summer streaming run. Even by the geriatric standards of broadcast TV, CBS (Young Sheldon's home network) skews old, with an industry high median age of 63.2 years (vs. 52.4 for Fox).

That could be telling us that an entirely new audience is discovering Young Sheldon, versus one that enjoyed it on CBS and is re-bingeing it via streaming.