Samba TV

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09/04/2026

There are only two ways to drive appointment viewing on linear television: live sports and Dolly Parton.

"9 to 5," the 1980 office satire co-starring Parton alongside Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, aired on ABC on Sunday and was the most-watched program last week on linear TV, attracting 4.1 million households, according to Samba data. It was the most-watched film on a broadcast network in three years, Variety reports, a testament to how beloved the late, great country star (and sometimes actress) was.

Even in these divisive cultural and political times of ours, there's something we can all agree on: Dolly Parton was a national treasure.

09/02/2026

🏈The 2026 NFL season kicks off September 9. Here's how fans actually watched the last season.

Prime Video has arrived at broadcast scale. It reached as many NFL viewers as NBC and more than ABC from behind a subscription. Regular season games last season were on Prime one night a week, plus a wild card round playoff game, competing against networks that are free in every U.S. home. Netflix got to 44% on two Christmas Day games; Amazon got to 89% throughout the season. Weekly presence compounds in a way that event programming doesn't.

The gap has moved, though, not closed. Broadcast delivered roughly three-quarters of all NFL viewing minutes last season, against single digits for Prime Video. Amazon has caught up with broadcast on reaching who's watching. Broadcast still owns how long they watch.

Spanish-language NFL is also bigger than most of the streaming conversation. ESPN Deportes and Telemundo/Universo each reached about as many NFL viewers as Netflix, and roughly twice as many as Peacock, entirely off simulcasts, with no exclusive game inventory of their own.

08/28/2026

The Weekly Wrap is here 📊

Reacher holds strong at #1, HBO Max's Lanterns ignites at #2 in its first week, and Ted Lasso S4 climbs the ranks. Netflix's Outer Banks S5 and Facing El Chapo both crack the top 10 in their debut week.

On linear, America's Got Talent keeps its crown for another week while Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! keep America's game show obsession alive.

08/25/2026

USA Today just broke down Samba data on F1's first season on Apple TV.

The season started steady: Australia, China, and Japan, the first three races, saw little to no change in household reach versus last year on ESPN. But reach has declined in every race since, with the steepest drops so far in Miami (-68%) and Monaco (-66%).

"One hypothesis our team has for this finding is that F1 fans may have activated an Apple TV free trial to be able to access the F1 race," said Alyson Sprague, Samba’s VP of Measurement Science. "But that they didn't find enough value in the trial to continue on as a paid customer."

Worth noting: 30% of this season's F1 viewers hadn't used Apple TV at all in the second half of 2025, representing a meaningful influx of new viewers for the platform as it settles into its first year with the sport.

Check out the breakdown via USA Today 👇
https://hubs.ly/Q04vd6jM0

08/10/2026

The Weekly Wrap is here 📊

House of the Dragon stays on top, Netflix's The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare debuts at #2, and Ransom Canyon keeps climbing. Hulu's Furious and Netflix's The Bombing of Pan Am 103 both crack the top 10 in their first week out.

08/07/2026

Apple took over U.S. F1 rights this year from ESPN and hasn’t released any public viewership data. So we checked our own numbers and found a pattern worth watching.

📉 The 2026 season-opening Australian GP on Apple TV came in nearly flat vs. 2025 when it was on ABC and ESPN in the U.S. This was a good result for Apple in 2026 that was likely due to curiosity and free-trial bump for Apple TV. But Miami and Monaco, the two biggest F1 races in 2025 for U.S. viewership, fell 68% and 66% respectively this year, as the early Apple curiosity bump wore off. Total annual reach for F1 viewership is down year-over-year, and the drop has gotten worse as the season goes on.

🆕 There's a silver lining, but it's mostly for Apple. 30% of 2026 F1 viewers hadn't used Apple TV at all in the second half of 2025, and those who are watching are doing it nearly 2x longer and across more races than last year's audience. F1 is proving to be a strong subscriber acquisition and engagement tool for Apple TV.

For F1, that's a more mixed picture. A smaller, paywalled audience means less overall exposure for the sport, even if the fans who do show up are more engaged. Apple's getting real value out of this deal, but whether F1 is building the broad American audience it wants is a harder question to answer at this early stage.

08/03/2026

The Weekly Wrap is here 📊

House of the Dragon holds strong at #1 for another week, Ride or Die and Lucky climb the ranks, and Netflix debuts Ransom Canyon S2 and Elite Force. Apple TV's Silo S3 also cracks the top 10.

07/23/2026

Trump's presence at the World Cup Final game moved the ratings among his base — literally.

Viewership among politically red-leaning DMAs in the U.S. jumped 22% above baseline during the Final game compared to prior World Cup games, while blue-leaning DMAs stayed flat. It was a similar pattern when Team USA's red card was reversed following Trump’s call to FIFA’s president: viewership in red DMAs rose 18%, while blue DMAs didn't budge for the USA vs Belgium game.

When the president shows up for a major international sporting event on American soil, his base shows up with him.

07/17/2026

The streaming chart has its first real rivalry. House of the Dragon and Dutton Ranch have been trading the number 1 spot for three consecutive weeks. Dragons, then Beth Dutton, then dragons again. Nothing like this has happened in four months of tracking.

But here is what caught us off guard: The Bear S5 is back. It debuted two weeks ago, fell completely off the chart last week (we had a whole conversation about whether binge drops were broken), and now it is back at number 10. The internet discourse apparently drove a second wave of viewers to it. The binge model is not dead. It just works differently than we thought.

Netflix only has two titles this week. That is the lowest it has ever been. Meanwhile Peacock, Paramount+, and HBO Max each have two. Six platforms total. The chart has never been this balanced.

Three big debuts: The Five-Star Weekend brought Jennifer Garner and an incredible cast to Nantucket on Peacock. Little House on the Prairie got the Netflix reboot (already renewed). And Larry David is back on HBO Max rewriting American history through petty complaints. Which is honestly the most Larry David premise of all time.

On broadcast, the three-week all-game-show streak is broken. Chicago Med cracked the top 10 at number 10. That is the first scripted show on linear TV in eight weeks. FOX also made the chart for the first time with Fear Factor.

What is your pick of the week? The dragon battle, the Nantucket drama, or the Larry David comeback?

07/16/2026

His & Hers was Netflix's biggest new show of 2026. 57% of its audience didn't start until after the first week. The show was over before most people pressed play.

We compared it against Finding Her Edge, a sleeper hit that found its niche audience fast. Same platform, same release model, very different viewing behavior.

Full-drop gets more people to finish. But does it build the kind of audience that comes back for Season 2?

Swipe through the data. Drop your pick for the next show we should score.

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