Insight

Friends and The Big Bang Theory left Netflix on December 30th, 2025. Since we started measuring Netflix, these shows’ 236 and 279 episodes respectively have been a key part of the bedrock of viewing on the service. Together, audiences to these shows represented an average of nearly 6% of Netflix’s accumulated audience on any given day in 2025 (December 31st aside).

Could there be any less impact?
At a service level, the impact of these two shows leaving the service is hard to discern. Comparing reach and time spent viewing in January 2026 against January 2025, both show an increase of just under 1%.

Both months featured strong new releases led by Harlen Coben’s Missing You in January 2025, and Stranger Things series five which drew good audiences in January 2026 after the finale was released on the last day of 2025. So, the slate in January 2026 doesn’t appear to be materially stronger or weaker than that of January 2025.

This is more than just a break
While the big picture may seem to show little change, those who were Friends viewers show a marked difference in service use.

Those who viewed Friends on Netflix in December 2024 spent an average of an hour a day with the service. In January 2025, with Friends still available, that figure ticked up slightly to 62 minutes a day.

By December 2025, those who viewed Friends on Netflix that month spent an average of 72 minutes a day with the service. In January 2026, as Friends and Netflix took a break, which is looking more permanent, that figure fell to an average of 57 minutes a day, a 21% drop-off.

The difference can be seen in reach too. Those who viewed Friends on Netflix in December 2025 numbered 1.8m. In January 2026, only 1.6m of those viewers watched something on Netflix, down -12%.

Chart 1: Friends leaving influences people
Source: Barb. Average minutes viewing Netflix (any content) for viewers of Friends (any episode) December 1st -31st 2024 in December 2024 and January 2025. Versus average minutes viewing Netflix (any content) for viewers of Friends (any episode) December 1st -31st 2025 in December 2025 and January 2026.

Those who viewed Friends on Netflix in December 2025 were already viewers of Comedy Central. The channel routinely schedules Friends back-to-back from 1pm to 9pm on weekdays, so this makes sense. Indeed, our Netflix-Friends viewers accounted for 7% of all viewing minutes on the channel in the last month of 2025.

Chart 2: Pivot! Friends fans boost Comedy CentralSource: Barb. Proportion of Comedy Central (stagger) minutes viewed by those who had watched Friends on Netflix in December 2025.

During January 2026, they were responsible for 16% of all viewing to the channel. In reach terms they were still a comparatively small part of the channel’s audience – just under 200k out of 3.7m in January 2026 – but they were clearly dedicated viewers.

It all ended for the Big Bang (on Netflix)
If we look at viewers of The Big Bang Theory in the same way, we see the same patterns. Average viewing time with Netflix for viewers of the programme was 73 minutes a day in December 2025 but dropped to 58 minutes in January 2026 after the show left Netflix. As with Friends viewers, this was a 21% decline.

Chart 3: Big Bang Theory viewing levels on Disney+ double
Source: Barb. Viewing minutes to any episode of The Big Bang Theory on Netflix or Disney+. October 20th 2025 – March 1st 2026.

In this case, however, The Big Bang Theory is still available (after a short break in January) on Disney+. For the four weeks to March 1st 2026, average total viewing minutes on Disney+ were slightly more than double what they were for the last four full weeks of 2025, ending December 28th.

Individual shows struggle to move the needle
Despite an impressive gain for viewing to The Big Bang Theory on Disney+ it’s hard to confidently attribute service-level changes to one show. The doubling of viewing time noted in chart three corresponds with a 5% drop in TV-set viewing time for Disney+ for the four weeks ending March 1st 2026, compared to the same four weeks in 2025.

And as we noted earlier the loss of Friends and The Big Bang Theory on Netflix had minimal impact on the service overall.

One show matters to the fans
For the viewers of a specific show though, we can track the changes in viewing when a show becomes unavailable on a service. As the merry-go-round of content licencing spins on and mergers happen, or not, it’s worth remembering that content is what the viewer is really interested in. Content means people shout “Pivot!” at an actor 27 years after he said it on screen for the first time. That is TV’s magic.

The impact of one or two shows amongst the more than 5,000 that drew viewing on a TV set for Netflix in January 2026 is hard to isolate. And there is a degree to which viewers will keep turning to a service out of habit, even after a show turns on. But any service that keeps losing established shows, the ones that bring the magic, may see a wider impact eventually. As ever, Barb data will be there to measure it.

Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight, Barb

Doug also shares some of these insights in the following video: