{"id":82115,"date":"2022-09-29T21:04:58","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T21:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nielsen-streaming-top-10-the-rings-of-power\/"},"modified":"2022-09-29T21:04:58","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T21:04:58","slug":"nielsen-streaming-top-10-the-rings-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nielsen-streaming-top-10-the-rings-of-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Nielsen Streaming Top 10: ‘The Rings of Power’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tThe two buzziest genre projects on TV rights now are finally having their first viewership battle.<\/p>\n

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\tHBO’s \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d prequel series \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d and Amazon Prime Video’s \u201cThe Lord of the Rings\u201d expansion \u201cThe Rings of Power\u201d both appeared on Nielsen’s streaming rankings for the week of Aug. 29-Sept. 4, with \u201cThe Rings of Power\u201d coming out on top \u2014 taking the No. 1 position with 1.3 billion minutes viewed. \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d was behind it, ranking as No. 5 and being watched for 781 million minutes, 61% less than its rival. (Note: Nielsen measures only US viewing on television screens, excluding other countries and devices.)<\/p>\n

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\tThis isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, as the availability of the two series doesn’t match up exactly. \u201cThe Rings of Power\u201d debuted with two episodes at 9 pm ET on Sept. 1, meaning they were streamable for the last three days plus a few hours of Nielsen’s viewing window. By contrast, \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d premiered its first episode at 9 pm ET on Aug. 21, its second on Aug. 28 and its third on Sept. 4 \u2014 with Episode 3 arriving just a few hours before Nielsen concluded its count for the week. Additionally, it’s important to note that \u201cThe Rings of Power\u201d is a streaming exclusive, while \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d has cable viewership that Nielsen’s streaming chart doesn’t account for. <\/p>\n

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\tAs such, the Aug. 29-Sept. 4 viewing window does primarily match up both series’ first two episodes against each other, and both series have roughly hour-long episodes, but the fact of streaming exclusivity for \u201cThe Rings of Power\u201d is a solid advantage. The contingent of \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d viewers watching the show on cable is sizeable; for example, per Nielsen, 3.2 million of the 9.9 million viewers on premiere night for \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d were watching on the HBO channel. That’s roughly one-third of viewers.<\/p>\n

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\tBut still, \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d had the advantage of its first two episodes being available to watch throughout the entire week. Plus, the small window of availability for Episode 3 shouldn’t be ignored. For example, when Episode 1 of the series premiered at the tail end of Nielsen’s Aug. 15-21 window, it didn’t make the chart, but it still clocked 327 million minutes of streaming viewing in its first few hours on HBO Max.<\/p>\n

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\tCharting higher than \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d this week was its predecessor. \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d took the No. 3 position for the second week in a row with 792 million minutes of streaming viewing thanks to fans rewatching the series as it returns to the zeitgeist. Therefore, combined with the 781 million viewing minutes of the prequel, as a franchise, \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d does have \u201cThe Lord of the Rings\u201d beat \u2014 though of course, the latter doesn’t have the benefit of a long-running series preceding it.<\/p>\n

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\tThis week’s Nielsen Streaming Top 10 is the first third-party viewership data to be released about \u201cThe Rings of Power.\u201d Previously, the only information available about its audience was Amazon’s self-reporting that the series reached 25 million global viewers in its first day, so this is a big win for the streamer, which had never before had a series debut as No. 1 in its opening weekend (though one movie had a chart-topping debut: \u201cComing 2 America\u201d). The billion-dollar budget Amazon invested in \u201cThe Rings of Power\u201d \u2014 making it the most expensive TV project ever \u2014 has certainly paid off. <\/p>\n

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\tIn the No. 2 chart position for the second week in a row was the Netflix movie \u201cMe Time\u201d with 927 million minutes in its first full week of availability, down just slightly from last week’s 971 million minutes. Following at No. 3 was \u201cNCIS,\u201d which makes the Top 10 most weeks thanks to constant Netflix viewing, but charted higher during this viewing window perhaps as viewers rewatched the series ahead of CBS’ Sept. 19 premiere of Season 20.<\/p>\n

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\tLimited series \u201cDevil in Ohio\u201d debuted as the No. 6 streaming programs, racking up 716 million minutes viewed in its first 3 days of availability on Netflix. In seventh and eighth place were usual suspects \u201cCocomelon\u201d and \u201cGrey’s Anatomy\u201d with 693 million and 674 million minutes viewed, respectively.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cStranger Things\u201d dropped from No. 4 to No. 9 in the ninth week of full availability for Season 4, being viewed for 667 million minutes compared to last week’s 890 million. And in last place was Netflix’s \u201cEchoes,\u201d a far fall as it was last week’s No. 1 streaming program. From Aug. 29 to Sept. 4, its second full week of availability, the limited series was watched for 627 minutes, compared to 1.1 billion minutes the week before.<\/p>\n

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\tSee Nielsen’s newest Top 10 streaming rankings below, with overall streaming titles for Aug. 29-Sept. 4 first, followed by original streaming titles, acquired titles and then films.<\/p>\n