With some delay, we now have the Nielsen ratings for the end of May, and we can now see how Stranger Things storms the chart with a considerable margin.
Apologies to regular readers of our ratings analysis, but for reasons beyond our control the Nielsen ratings for May 23-29 did not appear via their usual root, so we’ve taken data from an article on Variety covering that week, and the subsequent. We will cover the same data in two posts, so stay tuned. If we rewind to our previous ratings piece, our prediction was:
The next set of data includes the first set of Stranger Things numbers for season 4. We know the show has broken records, so it’s easy to predict it will be top of the table. The Netflix data suggests The Lincoln Lawyer will be second, and Ozark still be in the top half. Meanwhile, Disney+ also aired the start of Obi-Wan Kenobi…
Let’s look at the numbers
The Nielsen data for 23-29 May 2022
This is historic, US only and we add columns marked ‘*’.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | #Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Episode Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | Stranger Things | 32 | 75 | 5,141 | 68,546,667 |
| 2 | Netflix | The Lincoln Lawyer | 10 | 50 | 1,239 | 24,780,000 |
| 3 | Disney+ | Obi-Wan Kenobi | 2 | 45 | 1,026 | 22,800,000 |
| 4 | Netflix | Ozark | 44 | 60 | 804 | 13,400,000 |
| 5 | Amazon | Night Sky | 8 | 60 | 440 | 7,333,333 |
| 6 | Netflix | Wrong Side Of The Tracks | 8 | 72 | 432 | 6,000,000 |
| 7 | Netflix | My Next Guest | 23 | 45 | 352 | 7,822,222 |
| 8 | Netflix | The Circle | 49 | 50 | 328 | 6,560,000 |
| 9 | Netflix | Grace And Frankie | 95 | 30 | 312 | 10,400,000 |
| 10 | Netflix | Who Killed Sara? | 25 | 40 | 308 | 7,700,000 |
Stranger Things storms the chart
We knew the numbers were big, and don’t forget the Nielsens looks at all seasons combined, where the Netflix data shows the proportion between seasons. Now let’s spend a moment looking at that total. In three days the audience was over five billion minutes. That’s US only, and dwarfs any opening week we’ve seen since we’ve been tracing closely, and is more than any weekly total of any show in 2022. This shows the power of pent up audience demand on a flagship title.
What else happened?
We were right with The Lincoln Lawyer, and at #3 we see a very respectable opening weekend for Obi-Wan Kenobi, breaking the billion minutes for Disney+. We will be tracking this week on week as episodes are released. Prime Video’s Night Sky is also doing well, and overall the list shows strong figures for the big shows. The gaps between the lower four titles suggest there might be other shows hovering just below with similar audience size.
What do we expect next time?
As explained above, we acquired the numbers at the same time as the week 30 May – 5 June, so no need to predict. Expect our analysis soon.