It’s the end of the year and a time to reflect back on where we spent our precious hours in 2018. The answer is resoundingly … binge-watching Friends, of course! The NBC hit comedy that ended in 2004, was a lightning rod of controversy in recent weeks as Netflix gambled a rumored 100 million dollars to keep the rights to stream the series on their service through 2019. According to our year-end Binge Report, Netflix’s investment was a wise one. Friends was the No. 1 most binged show of 2018! The sitcom topped our report seven times this year and was present in the top 10 nearly week-over-week. Grey’s Anatomy was also a constant in 2018, coming in at No. 2 on our report and earning the title of ABC’s longest running scripted series. Teen drama 13 Reasons Why (No. 3) made waves with its second season, while Spanish-language series, Money Heist (No. 4) took the bingeing world by storm after the show moved from Antena 3 to Netflix for its global launch. Netflix also netted another entry with the sixth and penultimate season of Orange Is the New Black (No. 8) this year. Meanwhile, shows with dedicated fan bases like Riverdale (No. 5), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (No. 6), and the late Pretty Little Liars (No. 10) displayed legs for months in 2018.
With the return of major hits like Game of Thrones and Stranger Things in 2019, and an abundance of new streaming content, what will the future hold? Only time will tell!
DID YOU KNOW? While Friends might be the most binged show in the world in 2018, the top three members of the cast only made it into the top 50 Characters of 2018. Chandler Bing, Joey Tribbiani and Phoebe Buffay all made the cut.
*The weekly Binge Report ranks shows with the most binge sessions. A binge session is when four or more episodes of a show are watched and tracked in our TV Time app within a given day. For our annual report, bingeing patterns were calculated from 1/1/2018 - 12/13/18.
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