Great news for Amazon as The Wheel of Time debuts at #1 in the latest Nielsen US ratings
The launch of The Wheel of Time is going well for Amazon so far, as the show takes the top spot in the Nielsens on the week of release (November 15-21). We would bring our usual scientifically assured data analysis, but our team of eggheads [is that still an acceptable term?] is off at Stonehenge celebrating the Winter Solstice, so we’ve asked some elves to give us their thoughts on the data instead.
The Nielsen data
As ever, we take the published data and add the columns marked ‘*’. It’s US data only.
| Rank | Streamer | Series | #Episodes | Ep length (mins)* | Total Minutes (Millions) | Episode Watches* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazon | The Wheel Of Time | 3 | 60 | 1,163 | 19,383,333 |
| 2 | Netflix | Tiger King | 13 | 40 | 685 | 17,125,000 |
| 3 | Netflix | The Great British Baking Show | 74 | 75 | 513 | 6,840,000 |
| 4 | Netflix | You | 30 | 45 | 489 | 10,866,667 |
| 5 | Netflix | Narcos: Mexico | 30 | 55 | 428 | 7,781,818 |
| 6 | Netflix | Cowboy Bebop (2021) | 10 | 60 | 414 | 6,900,000 |
| 7 | Netflix | Big Mouth | 49 | 28 | 319 | 11,392,857 |
| 8 | Netflix | Maid (2021) | 10 | 55 | 302 | 5,490,909 |
| 9 | Netflix | Locke & Key | 20 | 50 | 293 | 5,860,000 |
| 10 | Netflix | Hellbound | 6 | 50 | 272 | 5,440,000 |
The Wheel of Time debuts at the top
It’s a clear winner, even if purely episode watches are counted. It broke the billion minutes barrier and looks set to stay at or near the top for a while. The series has been well marketed and is drawn from a successful set of novels. Will it become the next Game of Thrones? Far too early to tell. We’ll be tracking the show’s progress.
What else happened?
As Sherlock Holmes might say, look at who’s not in the list… yes, finally we wave goodbye to Squid Game. Locke & Key continues to fade and numbers are fairly low. Bake Off really is popular and there’s something for most viewers in the list. There’s also no show for Star Trek: Discovery, thanks to season 4 being not shown on Netflix.
What can we look forward to?
Based on history, expect Wheel of Time to increase then drop away. Next week will include the launch of the excellent Hawkeye (final episode released today), and that may well debut at #2 before growing (based on other MCU shows). Whatever happens, we’ll keep you up to date.