Topline
The release of the sixth season of Netflix's reality dating show "Love Is Blind" pushed the series to be the most-watched across any streaming platform in the month of March, and helped to make the streamer responsible for four of the month’s most-popular shows, new Nielsen data shows.
Johnny McIntyre and Amy Cortes were married on the sixth season finale of "Love Is Blind."
Key Facts
“Love Is Blind” was watched for 6 billion minutes in the month of March, according to Nielsen, a surge in streaming that followed the sixth season release on Feb. 14 (the season was among the top 10 most-watched Netflix shows for the five weeks after it premiered).
The second most-popular show of March, the animated children’s show ‘Bluey” on Disney+, was watched for 5.2 billion minutes and was the only non-Netflix show to be in the month’s top five.
"Bluey" was the most-streamed show in the month of November, dethroning a four-month streak for the years-old legal drama "Suits," and has consistently been ranked among the most-watched shows this year, according to Nielsen.
Brand new Netflix shows “The Gentlemen” (4.67 billion minutes) and the "Avatar The Last Airbender" live-action remake (3.9 billion) were in spots three and five, respectively, and out-of-production sitcom "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," which streams on both Netflix and Peacock, was in the No. 4 spot with 4 billion viewing minutes.
Key Background
The sixth season of "Love Is Blind" pushed the show to the top of Netflix's streaming viewership rankings for the first time in March, but the show—in which contestants try to find matches without ever meeting face-to-face—has ranked among Nielsen’s Top 10 most-streamed titles 23 times in its multi-year run. Spinoffs for "Love Is Blind" have been made in Japan, Brazil, Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom. The show's global success has spurred seven more unscripted dating series from Netflix, including "Love on the Spectrum," "Perfect Match" and "The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On." Season six of the show led to the marriage of one couple, Johnny McIntyre and Amy Cortes, who were married in the show's March finale. Netflix announced in December that "Love is Blind" will return for a seventh season.
Big Number
9.7%. That's how much of total TV usage in the month of March could be attributed to YouTube, a new record for the platform and the largest share for a streaming service to date, according to Nielsen. Netflix was the next most-watched streaming service with 8.1%, followed by Hulu (3%) and PrimeVideo (2.8%).
Tangent
Cable viewing was up some in the month of March thanks to the broadcast of President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech and the early stages of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. Cable viewership rose to 28.3% of television usage, its highest point since November. The rise was driven in part by the second-round matchup of Iowa and West Virginia in the NCAA tournament (watched by 4.9 million viewers) and the president's address, which drew 14.1 million cable viewers and accounted for six of the month's top-10 cable programs.
Further Reading
