The ‘Suits’ Effect: Why Older British Network Shows Are Doing The Business For Netflix UK

UNIQUE: An old British show subtly made its way into Netflix's UK top 10, perfectly illustrating a 2024 viewing trend during a week when the Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story issue was making news for the streaming service.

Despite being bought by Netflix over ten years after its 2015 BBC broadcast, the drama series starring Toby Jones was now ranked sixth on the streaming service's most-watched list.

When the show debuted on the BBC years ago, it created a little bit of a stir, but it wasn't exactly a huge hit. However, the internet has been flooded with article headlines like "Netflix has just quietly added a forgotten BBC masterpiece" in relation to the rather narrow-minded Capital, which starred Jones as one of the residents of a South London road who begins to receive eerie postcards.

In this age of cannibalized viewership, Capital's triumph is not an isolated incident. Although it has long been believed that when presented with too many options, viewers prefer to familiarity—just look at Suits—Deadline data from Digital-i reveals that 2024 has been the year that viewers have chosen to watch earlier series that they might have missed the first time. As Suits shot to the top of the U.S. rankings, the company saw this as a UK equivalent of the "Netflix accelerator effect."

Ten of the eleven most popular shows that Netflix has licensed in Britain this year debuted on their respective networks before to 2020, per Digital-i's data. This includes ITV's James Corden-starring sitcom Fat Friends, which debuted in 2000, and Channel 4's Deadwater Fell, which debuted right before the epidemic and is currently the highest-rated show with 1.7 million views after its first 28 days. Other shows with strong viewership include the 2017 Kit Harington-starring BBC series Gunpowder and the five-year-old Missing or Murdered real crime series on Channel 5. According to Barb, 17.3 million households in the UK had Netflix subscriptions at the time of the previous count.

Three licensed British series have already appeared in the Netflix UK top 30 this year: Cleaning Up (1.2 million views), Deadwater Fell, and ITV Double Honour (1.7 million views). Neither of the licensed shows placed in the top 50 in 2022 nor in the top 30 in 2023.

Comparing these British shows to American mega-hits revealed some astounding facts, according to Digital-i's in-depth analysis. After 28 days, Deadwater Fell, Honour, and Cleaning Up garnered more views than gaudy originals like Ripley, and Deadwater Fell and Honour even outperformed the highly promoted first batch of episodes from Emily in Paris' fourth season.

Hera Pictures' Liza Marshall claimed that both Honour and Sky's Temple, another Netflix acquisition produced by Hera, "reached a brand new audience who missed them during their original broadcast."

Marshall, a former Head of Drama at Channel 4, told Deadline, "The renewed interest from both audiences and the press has been akin to the buzz of a new show launch, underscoring the power of platforms like Netflix to breathe new life into British series with compelling storytelling and homegrown stars."

Netflix declined to comment on this piece, but Digital-i supports Marshall's claim by attributing the trend in part to a decline in young people's broadcast TV viewing over the previous few years, which suggests that they may have missed these older episodes when they first aired.

This element may help to explain why the Netflix series Brassic has been so popular in recent months.

Ahead of the premiere of Season 6 on Sky, Netflix acquired Danny Brocklehurst and Joe Gilgun's dramedy about a group of misfits in August, and Brassic has been dominating the platform ever since. Seasons of Brassic accounted for almost half of the top 10 Netflix most-watched shows for two weeks in early September, surpassing popular shows including Emily in Paris, Love is Blind: UK, and Kaos. With headlines like "Netflix viewers hail 'crazy' series starring Michelle Keegan as fans insist: 'This is mental, but I love it,'" it's no wonder tabloids started publishing stories. The fact that the show was recently renewed for Season 7 is likewise not surprising.

The success of licensed shows, according to Matt Ross, Chief Analytics Officer at Digital-i, is evidence that Netflix is adapting to the current environment in a "sustainable and cost-efficient way."

"Netflix is establishing itself not just as a creator of fresh, original content but also as an aggregator by bringing together the best of the UK's local content output from previous decades," he continued. "The addition of long-running, well-known shows helps streamline the viewing experience for audiences who are experiencing decision fatigue, making it easier to decide what to watch in between high-profile original launches."