Reality TV on Streaming in 2025: 35% Drop in Viewership, But Hits Remain Unshaken
An analysis of the current state of reality TV series, looking at the top programs this year and comparing the audiences to last year's data.
Today we’re diving into the data behind reality television’s performance on streaming platforms.
We have collected Nielsen viewership data covering all of 2024, as well as the first half of 2025 (through June 15).
We'll start by examining some of this year’s standout programs and then compare overall genre performance to last year’s numbers.
While Love Island USA Season 7 has undoubtedly been a major hit, we don’t have the full overview of how the series has performed because Nielsen’s reporting lags behind by about a month. Even with only 2 weeks of data, it’s right below our #5 reality series this year- needless to say this’ll continue to rise through the ranks as we get more data.
2025’s Top 5 Reality Series on Streaming (so far)
#1. Love Is Blind - Netflix
With 4 total rankings in 2025, the Netflix reality-dating series has accumulated 4.75 billion minutes viewed, averaging about 1.187 billion minutes viewed per ranking.
It’s also worth noting that Love Is Blind was released with a binge-strategy, meaning all episodes were available upon premiere.
#2. Beast Games - Prime Video
The Mr. Beast-created reality competition broke records for offering the single-largest cash prize in reality history. Its viewership wasn’t record-breaking, but it did do fairly well on streaming. In 6 total rankings in consecutive weeks (excluding its premiere in late-December of 2024) the series accumulated 2.942 billion minutes viewed on Prime Video. The series averaged over 415.333 million minutes viewed per week during its 6-week stretch.
Released on a weekly schedule.
#3. Love On the Spectrum U.S. - Netflix
With 4 total rankings so far this year, the beloved reality-docuseries showcases the challenges and misconceptions of finding love while being on the spectrum. The series has accumulated 2.69 billion minutes viewed, averaging about 672 million minutes viewed per ranking.
It’s also worth noting that Love on the Spectrum U.S. was released with a binge-strategy, meaning all episodes were available upon premiere.
#4. The Traitors - Peacock
Reality series The Traitors was definitely a hit for Peacock, where the series has accumulated 2.392 billion minutes viewed. The series ranked in the data set 5 different times, averaging 478 million minutes viewed per appearance. The Traitors actually retained higher viewership per episode than Beast Games.
Released on a weekly schedule.
#5. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives - Hulu
This reality-docuseries follows a group of women navigating their lives within the Mormon religion. The series has totaled 1.917 billion minutes viewed according to Nielsen, averaging 639 million minutes viewed per ranking(two rankings). This actually showcases higher average episode viewership than Beast Games and The Traitors in the data set.
It’s also worth noting that The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was released with a binge-strategy, meaning all episodes were available upon premiere.
Reality in 2025 vs. 2024
Pulling from our Nielsen data, we used Grok to help categorize series within the dataset, separating reality-adjacent genres from traditional scripted television series.
We identified two key subgenres dominating the reality category: reality competitions (including dating shows) and documentaries.
In 2024, a total of 42 unique reality programs appeared in Nielsen’s rankings across 107 placements, accumulating a substantial 58.77 billion minutes viewed.
Of course, we only have Nielsen data for roughly the first half of 2025 (through June 15). To enable a fair year-over-year comparison, we used Grok to extrapolate viewership estimates for the full year. So far in 2025, 17 individual reality programs have appeared 34 times in the dataset, accounting for 20.693 billion minutes viewed.
When projected out for the remainder of the year, 2025’s total viewership is tracking approximately 35% lower than 2024’s. This suggests a noticeable drop in overall audience interest in the reality genre on streaming platforms.
However, a key nuance emerges: viewership per series remains consistent, with only a 1.4% difference between 2024 and 2025. This indicates that while fewer reality programs are capturing attention, those that do are performing just as strongly—if not better—on an individual basis.
To help visualize this comparison, Grok generated the following chart illustrating the performance of reality series in 2024 versus 2025.
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❤️d love on the spectrum
The Traitors is trash