“Cobra Kai” was the most-watched streamed program for the second consecutive week with viewership rising 10.4% from the previous week when its 10-episode fifth season was available for three days, according to figures released by Nielsen Thursday.
Viewers spent 1.918 billion minutes watching the 50 episodes of the sequel to the 1984 film “The Karate Kid” on Netflix between Sept. 12-18. The audience consisted 18% of viewers ages 2-17 and 56% 18-49 year-olds.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” rose two spots to second despite a 3.4% decrease in viewership from 1.203 billion minutes for three episodes to 988 million minutes for four episodes of the Prime Video series set thousands of years before the events of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”
“House of the Dragon” also rose two spots despite a drop in viewership. The HBO/HBO Max “Game of Thrones” prequel was third for the week with its five episodes watched for 960 million minutes, 5.1% less than the 1.016 billion minutes for four episodes the previous week.
A new episode of “House of the Dragon” also airs each Sunday on HBO but that viewership is not included in the streaming figure. If it did, it would increase the total by 210 million minutes, according to Nielsen.
There were three programs in the latest top 10 not in the previous week’s.
The CW crime drama “In the Dark” was fourth with 825 million minutes watched of its 51 episodes, including its 13-episode fourth season, which began streaming on Netflix Sept. 12.
The three-part Netflix documentary series “Sins of Our Mother” was eighth with 661 million minutes watched in the first five days it was available.
Dropping out of the top 10 were the eight-episode Netflix suspense thriller limited series “Devil in Ohio”; the Tom Hanks-starring film “Pinocchio” which streams on Disney+; and the long-running ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” which streams on Netflix.
The top 10 consisted of six programs that stream on Netflix, two on HBO Max and each on Disney+ and Prime Video.
Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Apple TV+ and Hulu programming.
The top 10 consisted of four original streaming series, two programs that originally aired on HBO, including “House of the Dragon,” and one each on CBS and The CW, one movie, and “CoComelon,” the 18-episode 3D animated series of videos of traditional nursery rhymes and original children’s songs that originated on YouTube.
The top 10 programs were “Cobra Kai”; “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”; “House of the Dragon”; “In the Dark”; “CoComelon”; “Game of Thrones”; “Sins of the Mother”; “NCIS”; and “Thor: Love and Thunder.”
The figures reflect only television-set viewing, including such television-connected devices as Roku and Apple TV. Mobile-only viewing is not included in Nielsen’s streaming measurement systems.
While Nielsen releases weekly prime-time broadcast and cable ratings two days after the end of the week, except for holidays, viewership figures for streaming services are not released until 25 days after the end of the week because it takes more time to completely capture assets to report and aggregate streaming viewing, according to Nielsen
Nielsen has announced it plans to shorten the release window for its streaming programming in the coming months.
