| LATEST ANALYSIS: How many folks watched Friends on Netflix in the first half of 2025? |
Come April 2025, Netflix Australia will no longer be showing the classic sitcom Friends. That’s not surprising: March 31 sees the (belated) launch of HBO’s Max in Australia, and Max paid big bucks to swipe the rights to Friends in the US from Netflix back in 2020.
Clearly, the same rights deal applies in other markets. Netflix is now listing Friends in the ‘Here’s what’s leaving Netflix soon’ email it sends to Australian subscribers. (I’d assume the same removal will happen with Stan, which also has Friends rights currently.)
As an a physical media addict who still watches DVDs when I need a Friends fix, the switch doesn’t bother me. But it does remind me that it’s time to check in and see how the show has been doing on Netflix, an exercise I last conducted back in September.
Since then, Netflix has released its latest spreadsheet showing viewership for all its shows, covering the second half of 2024.
What does this tell us? Friends is a bit less popular than it was on Netflix. In the first half of 2024, the most popular season ranked #359, the least popular ranked #511. By the second half (the data we’re looking at fresh now), those rankings had dropped to #478 and #675 respectively.
That decline might reflect Friends dropping out of more markets as Netflix’s rights expire, or just the natural decline of a show that finished over 20 years ago. Even so, that still places it in the top 10% of TV shows on Netflix.
Here’s how the seasons rank when sorted by total views between July and December 2024.
| Season | Views |
|---|---|
| Season 6 | 4,200,000 |
| Season 1 | 4,200,000 |
| Season 5 | 4,200,000 |
| Season 4 | 4,000,000 |
| Season 7 | 4,000,000 |
| Season 3 | 3,900,000 |
| Season 2 | 3,900,000 |
| Season 8 | 3,900,000 |
| Season 9 | 3,500,000 |
| Season 10 | 3,200,000 |
Season 6 remains the most viewed for total views, while Season 1 has jumped significantly up the rankings to take equal second with Season 5.
How does that change if we look at hours viewed?
| Season | Hours viewed | Runtime |
|---|---|---|
| Season 6 | 38,100,000 | 9:08 |
| Season 1 | 37,600,000 | 9:02 |
| Season 5 | 37,600,000 | 8:51 |
| Season 3 | 37,200,000 | 9:28 |
| Season 4 | 35,500,000 | 8:53 |
| Season 7 | 35,100,000 | 8:45 |
| Season 2 | 35,000,000 | 9:04 |
| Season 9 | 33,900,000 | 9:28 |
| Season 8 | 33,800,000 | 8:45 |
| Season 10 | 23,700,000 | 7:24 |
Season 3 jumps up significantly in this ranking, just as it did in the first half of the year. Season 10’s appearance in last place is not surprising, given that it’s by far the shortest Friends season.
What if we adjust the rankings to allow for the different running times each season? For the sake of simplicity, we’ll assume that all viewing hours are spread across full seasons. That wouldn’t be true in reality, but it’s the only feasible approach with the data we have.
If we apply that logic, here’s how the seasons rank in popularity:
- Season 5
- Season 6
- Season 1
- Season 7
- Season 4
- Season 3
- Season 8
- Season 2
- Season 9
- Season 10
So whichever way you slice it, the most popular Friends seasons appear to be Season 1, Season 5 and Season 6.
It’ll be interesting to revisit this later in 2025, when Friends will have dropped off from Australia (and potentially some other markets), and see what happens.
For more “oh my God!” Friends-related analysis, check out what really happened when Patsy Kensit was cast as Emily and the weird way Channel 9 handled Days Of Our Lives.
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