Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast Programs for Asian American Viewers Were Sports Events in 2025
K-Pop Demon Hunters delivered 20.5 billion minutes of viewing as the #1 streamed movie of 2025 among Hispanic, Asian, Black, and White viewers
BTS: The Return Drew 47 million minutes of viewing in its first seven days with 73% of the audience being non-Asian
New York – May 7, 2026 – Asian-led stories, talent, and cultural touchpoints are driving engagement and viewership across every major demographic group, not just Asian American audiences according to Nielsen’s new 2026 report The Crossover Effect: AANHPI Audiences X Content.
From the world’s biggest live sporting events to K-Pop Demon Hunters to BTS and to Squid Game, Nielsen’s new proprietary research underscores the opportunity for brands and media buyers to align with iconic Asian-led content that offers access to a broad, diverse, and highly engaged audience that over-indexes on ad attention when creative reflects their culture.
“The proliferation of Asian and Asian American-driven content is not a trend, it’s a mainstream cultural movement,” said Stacie deArmas, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Consumer Engagement, Nielsen. “Nielsen’s new report underscores how content championed by this community is creating measurable value for brands and media buyers looking to reach mass audiences. And once again, shines a light on our unique ability to measure these diverse audiences with meaningful insights.”
“Asian Pacific-led content doesn’t just reach mass audiences — it creates them,” said Tiffany Chao, Vice President of Entertainment and Media at Gold House. “From Alysa Liu to BTS to KPop Demon Hunters, these are transformative cultural moments with record-breaking reach. The brands and media leaders who recognize this now will define the next era of media and entertainment.”
In 2025, 91 of the Top 100 broadcast programs for Asian American viewers were sports events. In Nielsen’s The Crossover Effect: AANHPI Audiences X Content delves into how Asian and Asian American athletes command broad audiences in high-profile competitive moments, often functioning as audience multipliers in ways that extend well beyond their sport’s existing fanbase. Among recent examples noted in the report from the past year include:
- Alysa Liu’s gold medal free skate at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics drew 26.7 million viewers on NBC/Peacock, the largest Winter Games weekday audience since 2014. This broke a 20-year U.S. women’s figure skating gold medal drought.
- Shohei Ohtani has delivered a consistent version of the same effect across multiple baseball seasons. AANHPI viewership of the 2024 World Series on FOX rose 146% year over year, and Asian viewership of the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series increased 113% compared to the 2024 Seoul Series.
- The 2026 World Baseball Classic featuring teams from Japan, South Korea, and Chinese Taipei, was a turning point for baseball as a global cultural event. For the first time, the tournament averaged over 1.3 million viewers on FOX, FS1, FS2, and FOX Deportes more than double 2023 (621K) and more than triple 2017 (403K).
Additional notable insights in the report include the following:
- K-Pop Demon Hunters on Netflix was the most-streamed original movie of 2025, with 20.5 billion minutes. The movie charted on the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 for 26 consecutive weeks and reached the #1 movie position 10 times following its June premiere. The viewing patterns showed substantial fandom across audience segments including Teens 12-17, Adults 18-34, and Adults 35-49, ending the year as the #1 movie among Hispanic, Asian, Black, and White viewers.
- The numbers for Netflix’s BTS: The Return tell a powerful story of cross-generational and cross-cultural connection, delivering 47 million minutes of viewing in its first seven days. Interestingly, while Gen Z drove a solid 26% of the audience, nearly 60% of viewers were Gen X and Millennials, proving this fandom is a multi-generational powerhouse. Most notably, 73% of the audience was non-Asian, showing that “K-Power” has built a digital bridge that redefines fandom.
- Korean-language titles including Squid Game (Netflix) and Alice in Borderland (Netflix) delivered strong cross-demographic performance throughout 2025. Squid Game ranked #2 in the Asian P2+ Nielsen Top 10 for all of 2025 with 1.6 billion minutes. Alice in Borderland (11.1% Asian audience composition) and Your Majesty (18.5%) both performed well above platform averages for Asian American viewership while delivering the broad audiences that make these titles valuable for brand adjacency. Asian American audiences also help deliver strong viewership for top performers such as Stranger Things #1 (Netflix), Friends #7 (HBO Max), and Resident Alien #8 (Peacock).
- Anime continues to be a major source of high-engagement fandom. The top 10 Anime series in January and February delivered a combined 5.2 Billion minutes viewed. One Piece on Netflix led all anime series in total volume with 1.242 billion minutes in January and February 2026 alone.
The report was developed in collaboration with Gold House, the leading cultural platform shaping global opportunities, combining Nielsen’s measurement with deep cultural insight into the forces driving global fandom and engagement.
More information on The Crossover Effect: AANHPI Audiences X Content can be found at Nielsen.com
About Nielsen
Nielsen is a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics. Through our understanding of people and their behaviors across all channels and platforms, we empower our clients with independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and engage with their global audiences—now and into the future. Learn more at www.nielsen.com and connect with us on social media (X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram).
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David Schwarz, Nielsen Communications
David.Schwarz@nielsen.com
