We have the first Nielsens for March 2021 and Ginny & Georgia holds onto the top spot — we bring you are deeper analysis
Last week we reported a new entry straight in at #1, and Ginny & Georgia holds on to keep the title of most streamed minutes in the US. We’ve taken the data to our replica of Babbage’s Analytical Engine and used an algorithm we like to think Ada Lovelace herself would be proud of. We factored in total number of episodes, episode length and Euler’s equation [we made that bit up] and this week we’ve added a column showing the count of episodes watched. For the past few weeks we’ve been mulling over just what our series watch represents and the implications of a short series and a behemoth with in excess of 50 episodes. Let’s look at the data and take it from there.
The data (taken from Nielsen)
Here’s our analysis of the top streamed US TV for the week 1-7 March 2021. Columns marked * are added by us; ** is also new this week.
| Streamer | Series | # Eps | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Series Watches* | Episode Watches** | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | Ginny & Georgia | 10 | 60 | 1,161 | 1,935,000 | 19,350,000 |
| 2 | Disney+ | WandaVision | 9 | 40 | 924 | 2,566,667 | 23,100,000 |
| 3 | Netflix | Murder Among The Mormons | 3 | 50 | 587 | 3,913,333 | 11,740,000 |
| 4 | Netflix | Behind Her Eyes | 6 | 60 | 369 | 1,025,000 | 6,150,000 |
| 5 | Netflix | Firefly Lane | 10 | 50 | 274 | 548,000 | 5,480,000 |
| 6 | Netflix | The Crown | 40 | 60 | 242 | 100,833 | 4,033,333 |
| 7 | Netflix | Orange Is The New Black | 91 | 55 | 237 | 47,353 | 4,309,091 |
| 8 | Netflix | Bridgerton | 8 | 60 | 235 | 489,583 | 3,916,667 |
| 9 | Netflix | The Great British Baking Show | 65 | 65 | 207 | 48,994 | 3,184,615 |
| 10 | Netflix | Longmire | 63 | 60 | 201 | 53,175 | 3,350,000 |
The obvious facts
WandaVision holds strong at #2, and is still the only Disney+ entrant. Most of the top ten shows are regulars, but there’s a new entry at #3 in the form of Murder Among the Mormons. The Crown is back in (as we predicted), and let’s not forget the Harry & Meghan interview on Oprah on the 7th, so expect it to still show strongly next time. More interesting is the surge of viewing for Orange is the New Black. The show finished two years ago, and we don’t know why it should have so many viewing minutes. Note the bottom six entries are not separated by a lot, so there might be any number of shows bubbling just under every week.
Looking deeper
On our series watch figure, Murder Among the Mormons is clearly a long way ahead, and with only three episodes, we are confident this correlates well with the number of actual viewers, as opposed to the number produced for Orange is the New Black. It’s not likely everyone watched all 91 episodes in a week, so our new episode watch column is more relevant here. On this basis look at WandaVision, which is storming ahead, Ginny & Georgia not far behind. Next week we will have the numbers for the whole of season 1 and we tip WandaVision for the top spot. See you next week!