It’s Cobra Kai for the win in the Nielsen chart for Original streamed shows — we bring you all the details
A solid win for Cobra Kai in the Nielsen streaming Top 10 for Original shows 5-11 September. Last week, we suggested:
…Rings of Power, but our view is the historic figures will see a rise as episode 3 arrives, and a full week’s data is available. We expect it to keep the top spot. The Netflix data has Cobra Kai back at the top, with new series The Imperfects coming in after Devil in Ohio. The Sandman may drift out of the top 10 altogether
We were largely there, barring factors we’ll cover below, apart from out faith in Prime Video’s Rings of Power. We’ll talk more below, first the actual numbers.
The Nielsen US streaming (Original series) numbers September 5-11 2022
We add the columns marked ‘*’.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | #Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Episode Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | Cobra Kai | 50 | 30 | 1,737 | 57,900,000 |
| 2 | Netflix | Devil In Ohio | 8 | 45 | 1,377 | 30,600,000 |
| 3 | Prime Video | The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power | 3 | 60 | 1,203 | 20,050,000 |
| 4 | Netflix | Stranger Things | 34 | 75 | 599 | 7,986,667 |
| 5 | Disney+ | She-Hulk: Attorney At Law | 4 | 60 | 493 | 8,216,667 |
| 6 | Netflix | The Imperfects | 10 | 43 | 465 | 10,813,953 |
| 7 | Netflix | The Crown | 40 | 60 | 345 | 5,750,000 |
| 8 | Netflix | Virgin River | 42 | 45 | 343 | 7,622,222 |
| 9 | Netflix | Echoes (2022) | 7 | 60 | 324 | 7,200,000 |
| 10 | Netflix | The Sandman (2022) | 11 | 60 | 306 | 6,120,000 |
Cobra Kai for the win
With almost one-and-three-quarter billion minutes, the Karate Kid spin-off had a powerful return for the latest season. If you also consider episode length, this is almost twice the count achieved by Devil in Ohio. Normally (but see Rings of Power below), shows grow on the second full week of data.
The Sandman watch
We wondered if The Sandman would stay in in the Top 10, and it managed to make #10, though dropped around 25% of its audience. There’s still no word on a renewal, and even Neil Gaiman has been fairly quiet on the topic (the Sandman volume 3 just came out on Audible). We’re still unclear how this will develop, but will let you know as soon as we do.
Dragonwatch
If we switch to the Acquired category, we see a very different story from last week:
| Rank | Streamer | Series | #Episodes | Total Minutes (Millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | HBO Max | House Of The Dragon | 4 | 1,016 |
| 2 | HBO Max | Game of Thrones | 73 | 805 |
| 3 | Netflix | NCIS | 354 | 781747 |
Four episodes in and this audience would place it at #4 in the Originals table, still slightly below Rings of Power. If you check various ratings sites it’s a different story, but early days. It’s a good rise for House of the Dragon and a steady audience rewatching (we assume) Game of Thrones.
What else happened? [We’re looking at you Rings of Power]
With just over 1.2 billion minutes audience, Rings of Power actually lost audience, despite more content and a full week. We understand Amazon is still very pleased overall (it has access to global data, for example, this is just US), but a drop is a drop. In our view the first two episodes took a long time to build, and it took until episode six for the action to really take off.
Stranger Things continues to show well as the Nielsens amalgamate all seasons into one figure. She-Hulk shows a slight growth, while recent events have brought The Crown back into the list as well. We had wondered if The Imperfects might gather a bigger audience — we’ll see what next week brings.
What are we looking for next time?
The Netflix data suggests Cobra Kai will keep #1, with a lot of new entries including Fate: The Winx Saga season 2. Devil in Ohio looks to drop from what we can see. How will Rings of Power perform, and how large will the audience for House of the Dragon get? We’ll let you know next time.