We guessed it from the Parrot ratings, now we can see how Lucifer dominates the Nielsens with the release of season 5B
The latest Nielsen ratings are out, and there’s one big story, clear to see — Lucifer was #1 most watched in the US across the platforms audited by Nielsen. It’s the week of 24-30 May, the week with Friday 28 when Lucifer season 5B was released on Netflix. We watched all eight episodes (at least once) across the first few days, and gave it a positive review. Now we can see just how much it dominated the viewing, and have insight into why it kept appearing in top 10s for a few weeks before. It’s in line with the Parrot ratings for the same week, but there must be more to the data than just this?
Our data analytics teams are still in a yurt on Salisbury Plain celebrating the Summer Solstice, but we asked them to cast the runes and give us their take on the numbers.
The Nielsen data
As ever we take the raw data, add our own episode watch data marked with ‘*’ and use that as a basis for discussion.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | # Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Episode Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NETFLIX | Lucifer | 83 | 50 | 1,284 | 25,680,000 |
| 2 | NETFLIX | The Kominsky Method | 22 | 30 | 495 | 16,500,000 |
| 3 | NETFLIX | Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous | 26 | 25 | 470 | 18,800,000 |
| 4 | HULU | The Handmaid’s Tale | 43 | 50 | 439 | 8,780,000 |
| 5 | NETFLIX | Ragnarok | 12 | 47 | 429 | 9,127,660 |
| 6 | NETFLIX | Who Killed Sara | 18 | 40 | 396 | 9,900,000 |
| 7 | NETFLIX | Jupiter’s Legacy | 8 | 45 | 214 | 4,755,556 |
| 8 | AMAZON | Panic (2021) | 10 | 45 | 192 | 4,266,667 |
| 9 | NETFLIX | The Great British Baking Show | 65 | 65 | 179 | 2,753,846 |
| 10 | NETFLIX | The Upshaws | 10 | 25 | 165 | 6,600,000 |
Don’t over think it: Lucifer dominates — and we really mean dominates
However you cut the pie, the figures for Lucifer are vast, and amongst the largest we’ve seen since starting out analysis of the Nielsens. It’s far higher than everyone else, and shows the effect of releasing a group of episodes together. Even by episode watch it still leads easily.
But let’s look at…
The Kominsky Method released the same days as Lucifer, and between them it’s a good week for Netflix, never mind continuing good figures for Camp Cretaceous. Another returning series, Ragnarok, dropped on the 27th, giving its fans a chance to watch before tucking into the bigger releases on the Friday. It’s really good news all round for Netflix, and a fade for Handmaid’s Tale after finally making the top last week.
Lower down we see Jupiter’s Legacy won’t go away, and it adds to the mystery about its cancellation vs Shadow and Bone. Don’t forget Panic, the new Amazon series showing well on its arrival.
What can we expect next?
We expect figures for Lucifer to be lower (around 600-750 at most), but probably keeping #1 over other titles we’ve mentioned. Loki was released on the 9th of June, so won’t show for another couple of weeks. We’d like to see Panic rise as word of mouth kicks in, and expect a few others to drop. Whatever happens, we’ll try and keep you posted.