“Hocus Pocus 2” drew the largest viewership for a movie since Nielsen began measuring streaming programming in 2020, according to the latest weekly figures released Thursday.
Viewers spent 2.725 billion minutes watching the fantasy comedy the first three days it was available on Disney+. The previous record was 2.198 billion minutes for the animated musical “Encanto” Dec. 27-Jan. 2, the first full week it was available on Disney+.
The 2-11, 18-34 and 35-49 age groups each accounted for a quarter of “Hocus Pocus 2’s” viewing and 21% of viewing came from Hispanic homes, according to Nielsen.
“Hocus Pocus 2” was the second-most watched streaming program the week of Sept. 26-Oct. 2 behind “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which was watched for 4.37 billion minutes in its first full week of release, the seventh-highest figure all-time.
The 10-episode Netflix biographical crime drama finished first for the second consecutive week, with viewership up 19.5% from 3.658 billion minutes, then the 10th-highest total all-time, the previous week when it was available for five days.
“Stranger Things” holds the weekly record with 7.203 billion minutes for its 34 episodes from May 30-June 5, the first full week the first seven episodes of the science fiction horror drama series’ fourth season were available.
“Stranger Things” has four of the weekly viewership figures ahead of “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” including the top two, while the crime drama “Ozark” and documentary series “Tiger King” have one each.
There were two programs in addition to “Hocus Pocus 2” in the latest top 10 not in the previous week’s, including the 1993 film “Hocus Pocus,” which was seventh with 774 million minutes watched on Disney+.
The long-running CBS action drama “NCIS” returned to the top 10 after a one-week absence, finishing eighth with 748 million minutes watched of its 339 episodes on Netflix. Viewership was up 16.1% from the 644 million minutes the previous week when 354 episodes were available to finish 11th.
Dropping out of the top 10 were the Mark Wahlberg-starring film drama “Father Stu”; the fantasy drama “Fate: The Winx Saga”; and “El Rey, Vicente Fernandez,” the 36-episode Spanish-language biographical drama of the late Mexican ranchera and mariachi star.
All three programs stream on Netflix.
The top 10 consisted of six programs that stream on Netflix, two on Disney+ and one each on HBO Max and Prime Video.
Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Apple TV+ and Hulu programming.
The top 10 consisted of three original streaming series, three movies, one program each that originally aired on CBS, The CW and HBO; and “CoComelon,” the 18-episode 3D animated series of videos of traditional nursery rhymes and original children’s songs that originated on YouTube.
Nielsen considers “House of the Dragon” an acquired program because it also airs on HBO.
The top 10 programs were “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”; “Hocus Pocus 2”; “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”; “House of the Dragon”; “Lou”; “CoComelon”; “Hocus Pocus”; “NCIS”; “In the Dark”; and “Cobra Kai.”
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.
