We’ve been chewing over the latest Nielsen ratings for September 12-18 and see Cobra Kai holds firm at the top of the chart — what else happened?
The US audience for September 12-18 in the Nielsen category for Original streaming shows (and it’s a little opaque at times where a show gets counted) show Cobra Kai holds onto the #1 spot, though numbers aren’t very different from last week (more on that later).
We were expecting:
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?
As you’ll see, we only missed out one (rather obvious) show. Here’s the numbers…
The Nielsen Top 10 Original streamed shows for September 12-18
FYI — we add the columns marked ‘*’.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | #Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Episode Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | Cobra Kai | 50 | 30 | 1,918 | 63,933,333 |
| 2 | Prime Video | The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power | 4 | 60 | 988 | 16,466,667 |
| 3 | Netflix | The Crown | 40 | 60 | 796 | 13,266,667 |
| 4 | Netflix | Sins Of Our Mother | 3 | 75 | 661 | 8,813,333 |
| 5 | Hulu | The Handmaid’s Tale | 48 | 48 | 581 | 12,104,167 |
| 6 | Netflix | Devil In Ohio | 8 | 45 | 552 | 12,266,667 |
| 7 | Netflix | The Imperfects | 10 | 43 | 533 | 12,395,349 |
| 8 | Netflix | Fate: The Winx Saga | 13 | 50 | 524 | 10,480,000 |
| 9 | Netflix | Stranger Things | 34 | 60 | 479 | 6,386,667 |
| 10 | Disney+ | She-Hulk: Attorney At Law | 5 | 60 | 403 | 6,716,667 |
Cobra Kai holds onto the top spot
With more than double the time (and almost four times as many episode watches), it’s a big win for Karate Kid spin-off Cobra Kai. This is the first full week of watching, and normally there’s a big spike from the three days opening weekend counted in the previous week. In fact the show was only 10% more watched. This is probably due to Labor Day (September 5) meaning a lot of people had a day off to watch Cobra Kai on release. I’m sure that’s not what the holiday was actually meant for!
The Sandman watch
The past few weeks we’ve been tracking numbers for The Sandman. As it has now falling from the Top 10, we start to suspect the much hoped for second season is getting a little less likely. We certainly don’t imagine we’ll be watching for numbers next time, sadly.
Dragon Watch
House of the Dragon (and Game of Thrones) count as acquired shows, and appear in a different Top 10 sheet. In the week in question, House of the Dragon was most watched, with 5 episodes and 960 million minutes. This would almost (but not quite) reached the #2 spot, held by Rings of Power.
What else happened?
With numbers down everywhere (Labor Day), Rings of Power is solid in the #2 position. Royal events kept The Crown in people’s minds and while a few other shows dropped, we overlooked the arrival of The Handmaid’s Tale season 5. This tends to get a solid audience throughout its run, so expect it back next week.
Stranger Things is still benefitting from the Nielsens combining several seasons together, and She-Hulk dropped several places. Fate: The Winx Saga did make an appearance, perhaps not as high as we would have expected.
What are we looking for next time?
The Netflix numbers for September 19-25 suggest DAHMER: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story will knock Cobra Kai into second as it begins to storm the listings (this is historic data and the show tops the chart for several weeks). Fate: The Winx Saga looks to have picked up. A lot of our attention will be on the numbers for Andor, launching with three episodes. We’ll let you know the outcome next time.