‘Shogun’ Racks Up Big Premiere Streaming Numbers

Rick Porter
·2 min read
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The premiere of FX’s Shōgun delivered a sizable streaming audience worldwide to go along with solid on-air numbers in the United States.

Over its first six days of release, the limited series’ first episode — based on James Clavell’s best-selling 1975 novel — gathered 9 million streaming views globally on Hulu, Disney+ and Star+ (with “view” defined as the now-standard formula of total viewing time divided by running time). According to Disney, that’s the best worldwide debut to date for a Disney General Entertainment scripted series (i.e., one that doesn’t fall under the Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Branded TV, Pixar or National Geographic banners).

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Domestically, the premiere episode of Shōgun also scored the best streaming debut for an FX show on Hulu (with an assist from Disney+), edging out the season two opener of The Bear. Outside the United States, Shōgun topped season one of The Kardashians as the top Disney General Entertainment series premiere.

The 9 million streaming views for the Shōgun premiere equates to about 630 million minutes of viewing time (or 10.5 million hours) for the 70-minute episode.

The streaming numbers for Shōgun come on the heels of a promising on-air debut for FX on Feb. 27. The first episode averaged 764,000 same-day viewers, and the second (which premiered at 11:38 p.m. ET) drew 442,000 people. That’s ahead of recent season premieres for Fargo (566,000 and 311,000 viewers for two episodes) in November and American Horror Story (454,000 for a single episode) in September.

Shōgun stars Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai, Cosmo Jarvis, Tadanobu Asano, Hiroto Kanai, Takehiro Hira, Moeka Hoshi, Tokuma Nishioka, Shinnosuke Abe, Yuki Kura, Yuka Kouri and Fumi Nikaido. Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks created the series, with Marks serving as showrunner. He and Kondo executive produce with Michaela Clavell, Edward L. McDonnell and Michael De Luca.

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