• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 9 hours ago

Top broadcast-originated TV shows can compete fairly well against exclusive streaming-original shows -- when both run on streaming platforms.

When looking at the most-streamed shows per season through the first five months of this year -- whether starting on a broadcast network or as an exclusive streaming platform -- the top ten shows in terms of minutes streamed are mostly evenly split, according to Luminate -- with five for broadcast and five for streaming.

According to the entertainment data and insights company, the top show in terms of streaming minutes from January 1 to May 27 was CBS’s "Marshals," which in its first season had 13.3 billion minutes on Paramount+. 

As with most broadcast networks that also have a sister streaming platform under the parent company, each new episode of a  CBS original show airs the next day on Paramount+.

"The Pitt" (Season 2) , the exclusive-only streaming HBO Max show, was next at 11.8 billion minutes, followed by CBS/Paramount+'s "Tracker" (Season 3) with 11.4 billion and "The Lincoln Lawyer" (Season 4), Netflix’s streaming exclusive, with 1.4 billion minutes.

Disney/ABC’s “The Rookie” (Season 8) had its best result on streaming (Hulu/Disney+) with 9.7 billion minutes.

Netflix had three of the five-highest numbers for a streaming series, while HBO Max and Paramount each had one.

On shows that started on broadcast, CBS had three and ABC had two.

The dead-heat comparison between streaming and broadcast shows should not come as a surprise, since both streaming and broadcast use “familiar TV genres and formats — medical and legal procedurals, soapy romantic dramas,” according to Luminate.

“It makes sense in light of where consumers are spending their streaming time. If broadcast series are drawing so many viewers on their platforms, why shouldn’t SVODs [streaming video on demand] platforms try to imitate them?”