Nielsen Streaming Top 10: ‘House of the Dragon’ Crosses 1 Billion Minutes Viewed in Finale Week
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HBO’s “House of the Dragon” closed its debut season on a high note. During the Oct. 17-23 viewing window, the last day of which saw the “Game of Thrones” prequel air its season finale, placed third on Nielsen’s Streaming Top 10 chart and scored just over 1 billion minutes viewed on HBO Max.
Because “House of the Dragon” airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. and drops simultaneously on HBO Max, the finale’s first few hours of availability were included in this week’s figures. That means when Nielsen releases its findings for the week of Oct. 24-30, the chart will reflect how the show fared throughout the seven days after which Episode 10 was released.
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Meanwhile, Amazon Prime Video’s “The Rings of Power” proved to be a little lacking in staying power, with the “Lord of the Rings” prequel series dropping off the overall chart one week after airing the eighth and final episode of its first season, a week during which it topped 1.1 billion minutes viewed. However, the drama still took fifth place when compared to other streaming originals alone.
It should be noted that prior to the week of Oct. 17-23, “Rings of Power” outpaced “House of the Dragon” on the Nielsen streaming chart six out of the seven weeks that both shows were premiering new episodes.
Because the shows have different airing schedules and are in different formats, these comparisons aren’t exactly apples to apples. “House of the Dragon” also had the benefit of a new episode bumping its viewership during this period, and overall has 10 episodes to count versus “The Rings of Power’s” eight, giving it more available minutes for streaming in the first place. However, an estimated one-third of “House of the Dragon’s” audience watches it via HBO’s cable channel rather than streaming on HBO Max, meaning this Nielsen-provided number is not reflective of its entire viewership.
Nielsen released additional data on both shows last week, giving some further insight into the audience contributing to the viewership on the two dramas. According to their analysis, at least 35% of “House of the Dragon” viewers were aged 18-34 while 42% of “The Rings of Power” audience were aged over 50. Also, 40% of “House of the Dragon” viewers also watched “The Rings of Power” and 35% of “The Rings Of Power” viewers also watched “House of the Dragon.”
Ryan Murphy continues to reign over the Top 10 chart with “The Watcher” despite Jeffrey Dahmer series “Monster” falling off the list. After being in third place in last week’s overall rankings, the show now occupies the fourth slot on the original programs chart with 599 million minutes viewed.
Created by Murphy and Ian Brennan, the mystery series starring Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale took the No. 1 slot for the second consecutive week with almost 2.6 billion minutes viewed.
“The School for Good and Evil” debuted on the chart at No. 2 with 1.1 billion minutes viewed in its first six days of availability. Starring Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington, Michelle Yeoh and Laurence Fishburne, the film adaptation of Soman Chainani’s best-selling YA fantasy series of the same name follows best friends Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie) as they navigate an enchanted school for young heroes and villains — and find themselves on opposing sides of the battle between good and evil.
In fourth place is “The Sinner” with 935 million minutes viewed. The fourth and final season of the drama was added to Netflix in October – one year after the season aired on USA Network. “Love is Blind” also cracked the chart at No. 9 with 683 million minutes viewed following the release of the first four episodes of Season 3 on Oct. 19. With new episodes dropping each Wednesday until the final “I do’s” and reunion episode on Nov. 9, it’s presumable the show will remain on the chart in the coming weeks.
The third season of “Unsolved Mysteries” pushed the show to tenth place on the list. Following its Oct. 18 debut on Netflix, the paranormal documentary series earned 672 million minutes watched in Season 3’s first six days of availability.
Elsewhere on the chart is “The Blacklist” (807 million), “NCIS” (796 million), “Gilmore Girls” (792 million), “Cocomelon” (757 million).
See Nielsen’s newest Top 10 streaming rankings below, with overall streaming titles for Oct. 17-23 first, followed by original streaming titles, acquired titles and then films.
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