Who Won the Streaming Wars in July 2021?

It’s one thing to know how many bodies are sitting in front of how many televisions to watch however many shows at any given time. But on top of every one of those bodies (or beside them if you’re lying down on the couch — no judgment) is a mind bursting with important ideas: ideas about the shows the person is watching, why they’re watching it, and how it’s similar to or different from the dozens of other shows they love. And Watchworthy is the place you can find cold hard data on all those opinions.

In just 30 seconds, our Watchworthy recommendation app gets to know your taste in TV and gives every show a “Worthy Score” specifically for you: the higher a given show’s Worthy Score, the more likely it is you will enjoy that show. Over the month of July, we tracked each time a new show (premiered in 2019 or later) received a Worthy Score of 70% or higher, then organized all those shows according to network. The resulting analysis allowed us to determine which network’s content is being recommended to the most users — in other words, it told us which of the major streaming platforms is currently winning the Streaming Wars. Here are the shows and streaming platforms that were most Watchworthy in July 2021.

Watchworthy bases its recommendations from data coming in not just from Watchworthy, but also from the hundreds of TV lists being voted on all the time on Ranker.com. To understand why these shows performed the way they did, we took a look at some popular TV lists to see how these shows’ rankings changed over the course of the month.

• Upvotes for Ted Lasso DOUBLED from June to July. 45% of the votes came from our list of The Best And Nicest Feel-Good TV Shows (10K votes) 

• The Nevers got a total of 106 new UPVOTES in July 2021, pushing it to the #2 Best New Sci-Fi Show in 2021 (1.1K votes) and the #3 Best New Fantasy Show In 2021 (1K votes)

• Sentiment for Little Fires Everywhere JUMPED from 49% in June to 67% in July, meaning 67% of votes for the show last month were upvotes.

• Sentiment for The Boys DROPPED from 75% in June to 70% in July.

• Fate: The Winx Saga DROPPED 38 spots on The Best Original Streaming Shows Of The Last Few Years (112K votes)

Which Streaming Platforms Were Most Watchworthy?

July demonstrated just how competitive the playing field has become. While HBO Max maintained its position, Netflix ended up bleeding some of its share of high recommendations, losing out to the “Pluses”: Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV+. In addition, Hulu staged a small coup by leaving the seventh-place spot it has occupied for the last few months and leaping all the way up to fourth place, thanks to a late, but much-needed boost from DAVE and yet another strong showing from Little Fires Everywhere.

But the real service to watch here is Disney+. Though it didn’t happen overnight, the platform’s three strongest performers — WandaVision, Loki, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — are all in the Top 20 for the first time, with Loki all the way up at #2. Disney+ has never been higher in the rankings than it is now at #3. If these shows are able to stay on the board, with the release of shows like Turner & Hooch and What If… buttressing them, Disney could soon replace HBO Max as the service nipping at Netflix’s heels. 

1. The Witcher Disappears, And Netflix Suffers For It: After three months at #1, The Witcher fell right off the Top 20, leaving the top spot for fantasy/horror series Locke & Key. And despite good performances from shows like Bridgerton and a breakout appearance on the leaderboard from Never Have I Ever, it seems The Witcher’s fall was enough to cut 6% out of Netflix’s share from June. The longtime Streaming Wars leader lost more share than any platform did in July.

2. HBO Holds Tight To #2: Though Euphoria and The Mare of Easttown are no longer drawing much water for HBO Max, Joss Whedon’s new historical fantasy series The Nevers looks like it may be a game-changer for the streaming platform. Jumping up 17 spots from June, The Nevers is also a clear favorite among sci-fi and fantasy fans, sitting near the top of Ranker’s lists of The Best New Sci-Fi Shows Of 2021 and The Best New Fantasy Shows Of 2021. Its strength in July, along with the impressive longevity of The Outsider, were enough to keep HBO from losing share after Euphoria’s disappearance.

3. Loki Brings Disney+ Closer To Valhalla: Loki is the #2 most recommended show this month, and its overwhelming popularity has translated into success for Disney+ on the Watchworthy leaderboards. If it keeps up its current momentum, even if WandaVision and Winter Soldier drop in the coming months, Disney+ could soon be a contender for the #2 spot.

4. Hulu Shocks The World: Hulu has historically had a hard time in the Streaming Wars because of its largely catalog-based strategy, as its original offerings like Ramy and PEN15 have so far failed to gain traction on the leaderboards. But Hulu’s license to stream FX content has proved tremendously helpful, as DAVE has delivered the platform a huge win by pushing it to #4. The win wouldn’t have been possible, however, without the Hulu original dramas Little Fires Everywhere and The Great.

5. Down Goes Upload, And With it, Amazon: Greg Daniels’s dramedy Upload is the only show of Amazon’s on the Top 20, so when it fell one spot on the leaderboards, it had a big impact. The surprisingly strong performances of other platforms made Upload’s failure hurt more than it might have otherwise, but Amazon can still hope that series like Hunters and Tales from the Loop pick up steam.

6. Paramount+’s Momentum Slows, But Doesn’t Stop: Rather than losing steam, Paramount’s iCarly reboot climbed two more spots the month after its premiere. Evil, a CBS horror series that recently moved exclusively to Paramount+, also contributed to the platform’s increased share in July. It’s hard to see from these results how Paramount’s good fortunes can continue, but then again, they’ve surprised us before.

7. For Apple TV+, Standing Still Just Isn’t Enough: Just as it was last month, 7% of all the content recommended by Watchworthy in July is streamed exclusively on Apple TV+. But with Paramount+ and Hulu both increasing their respective shares of recommendations, that 7% was only enough to put Apple one spot above dead last. All this in spite of the fact that both Home Before Dark and Ted Lasso improved their positions on the leaderboards. But given all the promotion currently behind Ted Lasso, and its second season not premiering until July 23, there’s good reason to believe this is a momentary lapse for the series’ home platform.

8. Peacock Loses The Feather In Its Cap: Two months ago, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist was the only thing keeping Peacock competitive, but in July, the show failed to net any recommendations at all. Watchworthy did recommend Resident Alien to a good deal of users, keeping Peacock’s loss of share down to a manageable 1%. Whatever it's doing to draw viewers to that show needs to be expanded, or the service risks disappearing from the leaderboards altogether.

Want to learn more about how we built a TV recommendation engine using Ranker Insights data? We tell the whole story in our Watchworthy white paper, which you can download here for free.

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