Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story opened at No. 1 on Nielsen’s Top 10 Overall Streaming chart for the week of Sept. 29, underscoring both the enduring appetite for high-profile limited series and the company’s continued ability to generate mass-viewer events. Nielsen’s weekly tallies showed two titles exceeding one billion viewing minutes — both Netflix properties — signaling that the platform remains the principal engine of long-form engagement across the U.S. streaming landscape.

Remaining steady at No. 2 was Netflix’s Wayward, which recorded 1.303 billion minutes viewed, the single highest minute count reported that week. The presence of two billion-minute titles on the same service highlights Netflix’s scale advantage: its global reach, algorithmic distribution and big-budget marketing can still turn new installments and returning franchises into communal television moments that drive sustained viewing.

The third slot on the chart went to NCIS, which leapt from eighth the previous week to amass 817 million viewing minutes. Notably, NCIS is a shared title available on Hulu, Netflix and Paramount+, a distribution model that points to another industry trend: the increasing normalization of multi-platform licensing for established franchises. Rather than confining a show to one ecosystem, rights holders are increasingly leveraging windows and shared placements to maximize exposure and monetization, especially for legacy tentpoles with built-in audiences.

Other entries included Netflix’s Love Is Blind at No. 8 with 698 million minutes viewed, demonstrating the platform’s continued success across disparate genres—from true-crime anthology to relationship reality. That breadth is crucial for subscriber retention: while prestige limited series can generate headlines and sign-ups, serialized reality programming fuels steady, repeatable viewing that sustains overall minutes and platform engagement.

The chart for the week of Sept. 29 also offers a snapshot of how measurement and business strategy are evolving together. Minutes viewed remains a blunt but valuable metric for gauging raw consumption, yet it does not capture demographics, completion rates, or the downstream effects on churn and lifetime customer value. For streamers facing slowing subscriber growth and rising content costs, translating huge minute counts into durable revenue requires sophisticated cross-functional analysis—tying hits into marketing funnels, ad products, and international expansion.

Culturally, the success of Monster: The Ed Gein Story reflects the ongoing public fascination with true-crime narratives and the anthology format’s promise of concentrated storytelling. Such projects can stimulate conversation about ethics and representation, especially when dramatizing real crimes, and put pressure on platforms to balance compelling content with sensitivity toward victims and communities.

For the business of streaming, the week’s Nielsen snapshot reinforces a familiar message: scale and slate diversity remain decisive. Netflix’s ability to deliver both event television and steady-rolling franchises keeps it at the center of viewing minutes, while the rise of shared distribution and the persistence of reality programming highlight strategic pivots other services will need to maintain relevance in an increasingly crowded market.