Serial Killer series DAHMER has stormed the Nielsen top 10, while Star Wars spin-off Andor makes an entry lower down — we dig into the data
We weren’t too surprised to see new series DAHMER top the Nielsens for September 19-25, though the actual numbers are impressive. Other changes elsewhere are worth discussion, first here’s what we suspected might happen last week:
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.
Here’s what happened.
The Nielsens for US streaming original series September 19-25
FYI, we add the columns marked ‘*’.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | #Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Episode Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | Dahmer (2022) | 10 | 53 | 3,658 | 69,018,868 |
| 2 | Netflix | Cobra Kai | 50 | 30 | 1,110 | 37,000,000 |
| 3 | Prime Video | The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power | 5 | 60 | 977 | 16,283,333 |
| 4 | Netflix | Fate: The Winx Saga | 13 | 50 | 675 | 13,500,000 |
| 5 | Netflix | El Rey, Vicente Fernández | 36 | 45 | 648 | 14,400,000 |
| 6 | Disney+ | Andor | 3 | 45 | 624 | 13,866,667 |
| 7 | Netflix | The Crown | 40 | 60 | 585 | 9,750,000 |
| 8 | Hulu | The Handmaid’s Tale | 49 | 48 | 535 | 11,145,833 |
| 9 | Netflix | The Great British Bake Off | 77 | 60 | 442 | 7,366,667 |
| 10 | Netflix | Stranger Things | 34 | 60 | 416 | 6,933,333 |
DAHMER tops the Nielsens
With over three and a half billion minutes, DAHMER sits comfortably at the top of the latest Nielsens, for what will be the first of a few weeks. From Netflix themselves, we know the show is already in the all-time Top 10 of shows in their first 28 days. In fact at the time of writing it sits in second behind season 4 of Stranger Things, but above both seasons of Bridgerton. In total (and worldwide) it has attracted an audience viewing time of over 800 billion hours, in fact over 50 trillion minutes. That’s a lot of audience and no wonder the recent Netflix Q3 results seem to have turned a corner.
Dragon Watch
House of the Dragon counts as Acquired under the Nielsen regime, and if we look there we see a total of 1,008 million minutes. This is the first time the show has beaten Rings of Power for those tracking such things. It’s clearly good news for fans of the series.
What else happened?
Cobra Kai fell back slightly and Rings of Power was only slightly lower than last time. It’s always nice to see The Great British Bake Off on the list, but our interest this week was Rogue One prequel Andor. It launched mid-week with three episodes and made mid-table. Not spectacular, but not a disaster. It’s far higher than Boba Fett, which only scored 389 million in its first week. Multiple episodes does seem to be a winning launch tactic.
What are we expecting next time?
Netflix’s own data implies DAHMER will top the table again, as various new titles appear in their chart (Dynasty anyone?!). The Winx Saga and Cobra Kai look to drop, and we’re very keen to see how Andor performs. It will also cover the sixth episode of Rings of Power, in which the action level went up several notches. As ever we’ll keep you posted.