“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was the most-watched streamed program in the first week it was available, the second time a Prime Video program has finished first during its opening week, according to figures released by Nielsen.
Viewers spent 1.253 billion minutes watching the first two episodes of the series set thousands of years before the events of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” during the first three days they were available.
The 2021 film, “Coming 2 America,” was the other Prime Video program to finish first during its opening week.
“Me Time” was second for the second consecutive with viewers watching the Kevin Hart-Mark Wahlberg film comedy for 927 million minutes between Aug. 29-Sept. 4, the first full week it streamed on Netflix. Viewership was down 4.5% from the 971 million minutes watched the previous week when it was available for three days.
The previous week’s leader, “Echoes,” dropped to 10th, with viewership decreasing 44.2% from 1.123 billion minutes in the first full week Netflix’s seven-episode mystery thriller was available to 627 million.
The release of the third episode moved “House of the Dragon” up one spot to fifth, with viewers watching the HBO/HBO Max “Game of Thrones” prequel for 781 million minutes, 5.4% more than the 741 million minutes watched the previous week when two episodes were available.
There were two other programs in the latest top 10 that were not in the previous week’s.
“Devil in Ohio” was sixth for the week, with viewers spending 716 million minutes watching the eight episodes of Netflix’s suspense thriller limited series during the first three days it was available.
The long-running ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” returned to the top 10 after a one-week absence, with viewers spending 674 million minutes watching its 396 episodes, 18.9% more than the 567 million minutes watched the previous week.
Dropping out of the top 10 were Netflix’s 11-episode fantasy drama “The Sandman”; “Bluey,” the preschool animated series that streams on Disney+ that originally aired on the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s part-time channel ABC Kids; and the long-running CBS comedy, “The Big Bang Theory,” which streams on HBO Max.
The top 10 consisted of seven programs that stream on Netflix, two on HBO Max and one on Prime Video.
Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Apple TV+, Disney+ 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 ABC and CBS, one movie, and “CoComelon,” which originated on YouTube.
The top 10 programs were “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”; “Me Time”; “NCIS”; “Game of Thrones”; “House of the Dragon”; “Devil in Ohio”; “CoComelon”; “Grey’s Anatomy”; “Stranger Things”; and “Echoes.”
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.
