Ted Lasso S4 draws 296.6 million minutes in two days; weekly releases take 67% of the top 100, and Christmas Day set a 55.1-billion-minute record
Apple TV is releasing “Ted Lasso” season four one episode a week on Wednesdays. The run began Aug. 5 and closes with the tenth episode on Oct. 7. There are no double-episode weeks.
That schedule produced Apple TV’s largest audience to date. Nielsen measured 296.6 million U.S. viewing minutes for the season four premiere across Aug. 4–5. On Aug. 5 alone the episode passed 200 million minutes and ranked as the most-streamed program in the United States.
The previous Apple TV record was held by season three of the same series in 2023 at 215.1 million minutes; the premieres of “Severance” and “Pluribus” sit below it. Divided by the 42-minute runtime, that translates to an estimated 7.1 million views.
Reaching that figure without posting a full season compresses the current scheduling calculation in U.S. streaming. Among the top 100 U.S. digital originals tracked by Parrot Analytics, weekly releases made up 67% of titles in 2025 and binge drops 33%. In 2017 the split ran the other way, 81% binge to 19% weekly.
Slowing growth sits behind it. Antenna estimates that U.S. Premium SVOD subscribers grew 7% in 2025, down from 12% in 2024, with category growth falling into single digits for the first time. As acquisition slows, the remaining levers are churn suppression and advertising exposure, and both improve when viewing is spread across weeks.