Behind Her Eyes and The Crew have both shown well in the latest ratings, and CultBox takes you into the detail you need to know
The latest Nielsens (Feb 15-21) are available, and we’ve applied the latest Bayesian inference techniques to sift the details and bring you the story behind the numbers. As ever we’ve factored in the programme length to generate our “season watch” value — our guide to what’s really happening.
The data
Here’s the data from the Nielsens with our additional items in the columns marked with ‘*’. Don’t forget these are US audience figures for people watching at least two minutes of a show, and our assumptions on viewers are just a model.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | # Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Season Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel | 4 | 55 | 806 | 3,663,636 |
| 2 | Netflix | Firefly Lane | 10 | 50 | 780 | 1,560,000 |
| 3 | Disney+ | Wandavision | 7 | 40 | 720 | 2,571,429 |
| 4 | Netflix | Behind Her Eyes | 11 | 60 | 677 | 1,025,758 |
| 5 | Netflix | The Crew (Series) | 10 | 25 | 556 | 2,224,000 |
| 6 | Netflix | Bridgerton | 8 | 60 | 380 | 791,667 |
| 7 | Netflix | The Crown | 40 | 60 | 300 | 125,000 |
| 8 | Netflix | The Great British Baking Show | 65 | 65 | 286 | 67,692 |
| 9 | Netflix | Cobra Kai | 30 | 30 | 252 | 280,000 |
| 10 | Netflix | Longmire | 63 | 60 | 248 | 65,608 |
The basics
From a simple-Nielsen perspective, we see Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel has taken the top spot from Firefly Lane exactly as we predicted last week [NOTE — let the data analysis team finish early to watch The Falcon and the Winter Soldier]. Wandavision holds onto the #3 spot and Bridgerton is drifting slowly down. The Crown still gets viewers, and we wonder what the impact of a certain interview will have on figures when we get them in a few weeks. Our deeper analysis takes you further.
Looking deeper
Our “season watches” shows the Cecil Hotel documentary has stormed out in front, though has pulled in from last week’s figure of 5.8 million. Wandavision is building viewers, so are people watching the latest instalment then rewatching or is there a rapid growth in viewers bingeing as they come onboard? Firefly Lane has dipped by around 40%, so we won’t be surprised if it is overtaken by WandaVision next time round.
The table is almost split into two groups (like a football league). The top five are clearly ahead, and the bottom four are rating far lower. Bridgerton is floating between the two groups, and has shown around 7% drop in “season watches” [NOTE — we need a snappier name for this; the S-factor?]
We may start looking at genre — The Crew is a comedy but adding that dimension on just ten shows a week may be stretching the bounds of the achievable (or at least meaningful). Is this useful? Do you have any thoughts on other factors we should account for? Let us know in the comments.