The 2025 Luminate Year-End Film and TV Report reveals a dynamic shift within the entertainment industry, particularly in streaming. 'Love Island USA' emerged as the leading streaming original television series, signifying a notable triumph for unscripted programming. This achievement underscores a broader industry trend where viewer engagement continues to rise, yet the volume of new content premieres is contracting. As streaming services mature, the battle for audience retention intensifies, compelling platforms to adopt more data-driven strategies for content creation and distribution.
This comprehensive report by Luminate offers crucial insights for industry stakeholders navigating a rapidly evolving landscape. While streaming consumption expands, the television and film sectors are experiencing a deliberate pivot towards more focused and strategic content investments, moving away from a 'growth at all costs' mentality. The data presented serves as a vital compass, guiding companies through the complexities of audience engagement and market fragmentation, ultimately shaping the future of entertainment production and consumption in a stabilized environment.
'Love Island USA' Dominates Streaming Landscape and Shifting Viewing Habits
In a surprising turn for the streaming industry, Luminate's 2025 year-end report designates Peacock's 'Love Island USA' as the most-watched original streaming television season. This marks a significant milestone, being the first unscripted program to achieve the top spot in Luminate's annual rankings, demonstrating a remarkable 150% increase in year-over-year viewership. This highlights a growing appetite for reality-based entertainment and a potential shift in audience preferences. The report also points out a broader trend where weekly content releases are gaining traction over the traditional 'binge-watching' model, with six out of the top ten highest-retention scripted series adopting a weekly release schedule. Overall television viewing hours for original series saw an 18% increase, from 17 billion in 2024 to over 20 billion in 2025, indicating a robust and expanding audience for televised content.
Despite the surge in viewing hours, the industry is witnessing a collective reduction in new TV premieres. U.S.-produced premieres declined by 11% in 2025, with broadcast television experiencing the sharpest drop at 21%, followed by cable with a 10% decrease. Streaming platforms collectively saw an 8% reduction in premieres. Netflix, while leading with 133 SVOD TV premieres, showed a slight dip from its 2024 figures. Other platforms like Prime Video, Hulu, and Apple TV exhibited varied performance in premiere volumes. This contraction is also evident in unscripted production, which saw a 31% decline across streaming and linear channels, with sports being the only subgenre to avoid this downturn. These statistics suggest an industry-wide recalibration, focusing on strategic content delivery rather than sheer volume, and an evolving viewer preference for regularly scheduled content over immediate full-season releases.
Evolving Landscape of Content Production and Global Influence
The Luminate report delves into the intricate dynamics of content production, revealing a complex picture of regional shifts and global influences. While U.S. domestic television production has contracted, particularly in Los Angeles with a 26% drop in film and TV projects, Canada has experienced a significant boost, increasing its project count from 67 in 2024 to 96 in 2025. This indicates a potential geographical redistribution of production activities. Furthermore, the global appeal of international series continues to grow, with South Korea emerging as the primary source for streamers, followed by the U.K. and India. This highlights the increasing diversification of content origins and the willingness of international audiences to engage with non-domestic productions, enriching the global entertainment landscape.
In the film sector, the report notes a continued decline in overall streaming film output, with a decrease from 343 films in 2024 to 290 in 2025, a trend observed even with major players like Netflix scaling back. Conversely, U.S. theatrical film releases experienced a modest upturn, increasing from 74 in 2024 to 80 in 2025. This suggests a nuanced market where theatrical releases, despite the dominance of streaming, still hold a distinct value proposition for certain productions and audiences. The contrasting trends in TV and film premieres, coupled with geographical shifts in production and the rising prominence of international content, underscore the industry's ongoing adaptation to consumer behavior and economic realities. Luminate CEO Rob Jonas emphasizes that this report serves as a 'roadmap for an industry finding its footing in a new, stabilized reality,' signaling a strategic shift towards data-driven decisions in content investment and audience engagement in an increasingly fragmented market.