The latest Nielsens are out and Clickbait is the new #1 — we dig deeper into the data
We’ve been absorbing the Nielsen ratings for August 23-29 and Clickbait is the clear viewer’s choice (despite very mixed critical response), but as ever we’ve taken a deeper look into all the figures, then produced a narrative to explain it all based on use of the I-Ching (our data scientists are away this week). Let’s just check what we predicted last week:
We see Nicole Kidman’s Strangers taking the top, with Grace and Frankie a contender. We’ll predict Outer Banks will net around 500 million minutes, so might hold onto a top 3 spot, and Virgin River drifting down to around 250 million, so lower third. Our favourite Lucifer might even drift out on current form, remembering season 6 appears on September 10, so a few more weeks data to come yet (OK, three).
We don’t seen What If…? cracking the top 3, but might net around 300 million.
Not our most impressive predictions, and we’ll discuss further lower down. First the data.
The Nielsen data August 23-29
As ever we use the published US data and add columns marked with ‘*’.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | # Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Episode Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NETFLIX | Clickbait | 8 | 45 | 912 | 20,266,667 |
| 2 | NETFLIX | Outer Banks | 20 | 50 | 483 | 9,660,000 |
| 3 | NETFLIX | Grace And Frankie | 83 | 30 | 469 | 15,633,333 |
| 4 | HULU | Nine Perfect Strangers | 4 | 50 | 369 | 7,380,000 |
| 5 | NETFLIX | The Chair | 6 | 60 | 310 | 5,166,667 |
| 6 | NETFLIX | Virgin River | 30 | 45 | 288 | 6,400,000 |
| 7 | DISNEY+ | What If | 3 | 30 | 233 | 7,766,667 |
| 8 | NETFLIX | Family Reunion | 34 | 30 | 199 | 6,633,333 |
| 9 | NETFLIX | The Defeated | 8 | 45 | 194 | 4,311,111 |
| 10 | NETFLIX | Lucifer | 83 | 50 | 190 | 3,800,000 |
Clickbait is the new #1, what else did we get wrong?
With a massive 912 million minutes and over 20 million episodes watched, there’s only one winner. Clickbait is showing 55% critic rating and 64% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, so not high by any means, and we wonder if this is a one-week wonder or something growing on word of mouth. What we don’t see is how many people watch episode 1 against those watching the whole series.
We had though Nine Perfect Strangers might top the chart, instead it dropped by around 10% to drift down. Our guess for Outer Banks is in the right ballpark, and it made #2 instead of #3. Virgin River did better than we’d predicted, as did Lucifer (and see our final season review).
The disappointing figures for What If…? continue.
What else happened?
Quite a lot of churn, but some very low totals in the bottom reaches. Our episodes column adds weight to the hypothesis of only three big shows, and we expect lots more change next week.
What do we predict for next week?
Barring a newcomer, we see lots of shows dropping off, leaving Clickbait clear for another week, and the direction of travel will indicate whether interest is waning or of word of mouth is still adding viewers. Some of this week’s newcomers (eg Family Reunion and The Chair) have room to grow, and we expect a few new titles to appear. We hit September, and only one more week before we predict good things for Lucifer and the show might even pick up a few more views in the gap week.
Whatever happens, we’ll bring you our unique take.