Spooky season is showing up in the Samba viewership data. Netflix’s Unabomber climbed two places to take No. 1 on the latest Wrap Report streaming chart, ending the run of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story at the top and putting true crime back in the lead for October.
The weekly chart is built from Samba’s panel of more than 3 million US households, balanced to the Census, and it tracks both streaming and linear viewing. For media teams, it is a directional read on what actually gets sampled and sustained, not a platform-reported hours figure.
The top of the chart is a true-crime stack
Netflix also opened The Widower: ‘Til Death Do Us Part in the top three, tracing the story of Thomas Randolph, convicted after several of his wives died under suspicious circumstances. The service is stacking adjacent true-crime titles through October: one established title holding the lead, a new documentary entering underneath it. That is a scheduling pattern worth copying for retention-heavy genres.
Apple TV+ gave the chart its counterprogramming. Ted Lasso returned after a week away following its second-to-last fourth-season episode on Sept. 30 and landed in the top three as its finale airs this week. The question for next week’s chart is whether a finale bump can dislodge Netflix’s true-crime block.
Why the rest of the Top 10 matters
- East of Eden (Netflix) debuted in fourth, with Florence Pugh’s Cathy Ames made the central character.
- Lanterns (HBO Max) rose back to fifth on its season finale after sliding to tenth a week earlier.
- Wonka’s the Golden Ticket (Netflix) climbed two to sixth; The Breadwinner (Netflix) entered at seventh after a theatrical run in May.
- Mobland (Paramount+) fell one to eighth; Neagly (Prime Video) dropped to ninth in its third week.
- A Different World (Netflix) closed the list at tenth, sliding four spots in week two.
The Neagly run is a useful binge-release case. Prime Video dropped all eight episodes on Sept. 16, and the show held second place for two straight weeks before falling. In a weekly chart dominated by episodic finales, a binge title staying in the top 10 into week three is the data point to note.
Linear gets its own contest
On linear, ABC’s Dancing with the Stars moved past NBC’s The Voice for first place. That is notable because The Voice historically leads the fall linear chart. Survivor took third in its 51st season, Saturday Night Live landed eighth with host Dakota Johnson and musical guest Turnstile, and the game-show block remained strong with four Wheel of Fortune entries and two Jeopardy! spots.
Two scheduling lessons sit beneath the rankings. First, genre adjacency works: Netflix placed a new documentary directly under its reigning true-crime title, giving viewers a next click after finishing one dark story. Second, counterprogramming is not dead: Apple is using the Ted Lasso finale to give non-crime viewers a premium reason to open the app. Planners should treat the top 10 less as a leaderboard and more as a map of competing retention strategies.
Source: TheWrap
