Apple achieved significant success for Apple TV+ by ranking among the top five most-watched original series in the United States for the first time in the first half of 2025. According to Bloomberg, citing Nielsen data, the second season of Severance, one of the platform’s original productions, was the fifth most-watched series in the US in the first six months of the year, based on total viewing time.

Severance topped the list for the first time.

According to Nielsen’s list, which covers only US viewers and is based on total viewing minutes across connected TVs and select devices, the most-watched series in the first half of 2025 were: Squid Game (Netflix) with 15.074 million minutes, Reacher (Prime Video) with 13.313 million minutes, The Night Agent (Netflix) with 12.219 million minutes, Ginny & Georgia (Netflix) with 10.201 million minutes, and Severance (Apple TV+) with 9.275 million minutes. Apple’s follow-up series came from other platforms such as Paramount+, Max, and Hulu.

Apple’s inclusion on the list reflects a shift in the industry as a whole. Netflix, which accounted for over 80% of the most-watched titles in 2021, dropped this share to below 50% in the first half of 2025.

Amazon Prime Video, Max, Hulu, Paramount+, and Apple TV+ significantly outperformed the competition, offering content that reached Nielsen’s Top 10 list throughout the year. Disney+, by contrast, failed to produce any originals that made the list in the first six months of 2025.

While Netflix remains the leader in terms of the number of most-watched series, its share of the overall viewing growth remained stable. According to Nielsen data, total digital viewing in the US increased by 6 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2025, with ad-supported free services like YouTube, Tubi, and the Roku Channel benefiting the most from this growth.

While Apple does not release official data on Apple TV+’s subscriber count, Ampere Analysis estimated in May that the service has reached over 60 million paid subscribers globally. The largest growth occurred in North America and Western Europe. Apple has also renewed the third season of Severance.