USA Network’s Suits Dominates Nielsen Ratings 4 Years After Cancellation

Four years after concluding, Suits is leading the streaming charts. According to the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 list for the week of June 19-25, the USA Network’s legal drama was watched for 2.3 billion minutes. Two billion minutes watched on Nielsen’s Streaming List is not an easy feat; the last series to cross the milestone was The Night Agent, nearly four months ago. According to Variety, who first reported the news, that achievement is not common for series acquired from other networks and not streamer specific. Although the series was previously streaming on Peacock, the series joined Netflix’s streaming library the week of June 19. Suits quickly rose to the top of Netflix’s streaming chart and currently, a month after its debut on the streamer, the series is still sitting pretty in the number two spot (the docuseries Quarterback now claims the top spot).

The other titles rounding out the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 overall list for the week of June 19-25 are Black Mirror (1.5 billion minutes watched), S.W.A.T. (over one billion minutes watched), Extraction (over one billion minutes watched), The Bear (watched for 853 million minutes), Grey’s Anatomy (772 million minutes watched), Bluey (770 million minutes watched), NCIS (710 million minutes watched), and Avatar: The Way of Water (671 million minutes.).

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Suits’ Premise and Success

Suits premiered on the USA Network in June 2011, and starred Patrick J. Adams as Mike Ross and Gabriel Macht as Harvey Specter. Ross is a young man (without a law degree or passed BAR exam) who uses his gift of photographic memory to secure a position as an associate working for Specter, a successful New York City attorney. The series focuses on the two men as they handle complex cases and work diligently to ensure that Ross’ lack of credentials remain a secret. The USA Network series also starred Rick Hoffman, Meghan Markle, Sarah Rafferty, and Gina Torres.

The series’ eighth season saw significant changes, as Adams, Markle and Torres did not return. In a 2018 interview, Adams spoke about his decision to leave the successful series, saying:

“I had this voice in my head that said that we’ve told his story and if he hangs out longer, Mike is just going to be another lawyer on television. That didn’t feel right for him. It didn’t feel right for where I was at in my life, either. I started having conversations with Aaron [Korsh, series creator and write] and we both decided [Adams leaving] made sense, as sad and scary as it was. It just felt like it was the way to go.”

The eighth season introduced Katherine Heigl, but the series would be renewed for just one additional season. The series’ ninth and final series, which featured the return of Adams, premiered on July 2019 and concluded after 10 episodes in Spetember 2019. A short-lived spinoff, Pearson, centered on Torres’ character, premiered in 2019, but was canceled after just one season.

Through its nine season run, Suits was well-received, earning multiple awards and nominations along the way: most notably Adams’ Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series in 2012, and Torres’ NHMC Impact Award for Outstanding Performance In A Television Series in 2013 and an Imagen Foundation Awards for Best Supporting Actress in Television in 2018.