Cord-cutters stream library titles 3 times as much as originals
Cord-cutters stream library titles 3 times as much as originals
New data from Luminate shows that older TV shows and movies are dominating new originals in terms of viewing time.
What kind of content are viewers spending their time with? That question is the focus of Luminate's new Retro Revival report, and the study revealed some fascinating trends. Turns out, those expensive streaming originals that platforms pay major money for aren’t the biggest draw for audiences — instead, viewers are continuing to flock to older library titles on both paid and free streamers alike.
Key Details:
- Big margin: Library content consumption on major streamers beats viewing of original titles by three to one.
- Quality time: Viewers say that 58% of their time is spent watching titles that are at least one year old.
- Mounting evidence: Luminate’s data confirms research from other outlets that touts the virtues of nostalgic content.
According to Luminate’s data, viewership of library content in the first quarter of 2026 hit 25 billion hours, while originals registered only 7.3 billion. Library viewership has held a wide lead over that of originals in the past several quarters, and the divide is widening.
Click chart to expand.
It must be pointed out that volume plays a large role in these statistics; Luminate estimates that nearly 13,000 library titles are available across major streaming services, versus just 6,300 originals. The data also classifies new titles from broadcast networks as library titles, and previous numbers released by Luminate indicate such titles have been highly popular in the first half of this year.
Still, drilling down into Luminate’s data shows that viewers are in fact spending the majority of their streaming time at home watching older shows and movies — defined as titles released one or more years ago. The report found that audiences say they spend 58% of their homebound streaming time watching either older titles they haven’t seen before or older titles that they’re rewatching.
Click chart to expand.
The trend could accelerate too, as Luminate reports that original content viewing in the United States is trending downward slightly year-over-year. That could lead to streamers making even greater efforts to emphasize their catalogs, and if so, an even bigger jump in watching older titles could ensue.
The numbers from Luminate dovetail with recent data from Samsung Ads, which showed that free streamers are drawing huge amounts of attention to their nostalgic library titles. Clearly, it’s not just free streaming services that are piling up viewing hours with older shows and movies.
Streaming services will still spend big bucks to ensure they have centerpiece original titles, but Luminate’s data shows once again how important a strong library is. It’s what keeps viewers engaged with a streamer on a regular basis, to the point that library title viewership outstrips that of originals by a three-to-one margin.
Prime Video
Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.