The Nielsen Streaming Charts For The Acolyte - Week 2

Nielsen have a somewhat erratic release schedule currently, they released their early June numbers earlier this week… and on Friday they already followed up with the numbers for the next week. Whatever… Nielsen have therefore now added The Acolyte episode 3 (the flashback episode about the power of maaaaannyyyyyyyyyy) to their charts. And we can finally compare one full week of The Acolyte on the Luminate Streaming charts to one full week on the Nielsen charts. How do the numbers compare? It’s very interesting! Click through for all the details!

The power of… none…

The Acolyte is in a rather “meh” 6th place on the original series streaming charts with pretty bad 370 million minutes viewed.

The interesting thing here is that this is virtually the same number as reported by Luminate. Week 1 numbers diverged because of the different interval both companies use, Friday to Thursday vs Monday to Sunday. But now that both Nielsen and Luminate have charts where The Acolyte had a full week to accumulate viewing minutes we find that both Luminate and Nielsen agree. Luminate even has the somewhat higher numbers, 380.5 million minutes vs the 370 million reported by Nielsen, but all in all this is in perfect agreement. It also spells potential disaster for the show on the Nielsen charts because on the Luminate charts The Acolyte dropped out of the top 10 and viewing minutes greatly declined as more episodes were released.

In comparison:

Ahsoka had 487 million minutes in week 2. Boba Fett had 563 million minutes even. Even Andor had 485 million minutes. And episode 3 of The Acolyte was one of the longest with 42 minutes and still only has 370 million minutes.

If all people just watched episode 3 it means 8.81 million people watched it, but of course people also watched previous episodes that week. The same metric for Andor gives us 10.32 million views however and Andor was, before The Acolyte, the show with the least views on Disney+. Of course people also watched the previous Andor episodes that week. But the fact that week 2 numbers for The Acolyte are already worse than Andor’s speaks volumes!

Still, I believe it is much better to look at season averages, so total runtime vs total viewing minutes!

The Acolyte (Nielsen): 865 million minutes total, total runtime 119 minutes, average views 7.27 million
Ahsoka (Nielsen): 1,316 million minutes total, total runtime 132 minutes, average views 9.97 million
Andor (Nielsen): 1,109 million minutes total, total runtime 161 minutes, average views 6.89 million
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Nielsen): 1,984 million minutes, total runtime 135 minutes, average views 14.7 million
The Book of Boba Fett (Nielsen): 952 million minutes total, total runtime 89 minutes, average views 10.7 million
The Mandalorian S3 (Nielsen): 1,712 million minutes total, total runtime 77 minutes, average views 22.23 million

On the Luminate charts week 2 had the highest number for The Acolyte, in subsequent weeks the show would have less than 300 million minutes watched, down all the way to about 220 million before it dropped out of the charts.

Even though Andor had a very slow start, because three lengthy episodes were all released at once, and one day later too (The Acolyte airs on Tuesday nights, Andor was released on a Wednesday!) The Acolyte is already only barely ahead of Andor anymore. Week 2 numbers if directly compared see Andor already ahead of The Acolyte which is just embarrassing. Chances are very high the season average for The Acolyte will drop below Andor’s average soon.

The Acolyte has just 75% of Ahsoka’s audience. And Ahsoka’s viewing figures were already just “average and ok” at best, the second worst after Andor before The Acolyte. In fact, Andor’s finale would ultimately have better numbers than Ahsoka’s.

When compared to season 3 of The Mandalorian, the season many didn’t even like all that much, The Acolyte doesn’t even quite have 1/3 of the Mandalorian audience, 32.7%. Meaning more than 2/3 of the potential audience of a Star Wars series on Disney+ never watched The Acolyte and never bothered. Droves of fans have said “no” from the very get go. This should give food for thought for Lucasfilm.

Even more embarrassing: Bridgerton, that female centric show watched actually by women, has more than 9 times (!!!) the viewing minutes. 3.4 billion vs 370 million for The Acolyte. This too is in agreement with Luminate. Nielsen however has no numbers for the separate seasons but just provides an overall number for the entire show.

And it has to be pointed out once again: Lucasfilm spent 180 million on this, before marketing. So almost certainly in excess of $200 million. And it’s a ratings flop. Week 2 sees it already behind Andor which is just pitiful. And if Luminate and Nielsen remain to be in agreement it will only be downhill from here.

There is no way to spin or sugarcoat this: The Acolyte’s ratings are bad and chances are they will become a lot worse as Nielsen adds more episodes. We can also say now that Luminate and Nielsen are very much in agreement when it comes to the numbers, which may be somewhat surprising but speaks for the reliability of these third party analysts. Even the numbers for Bridgerton are similar between Nielsen and Luminate, both have this show as the #1 original streaming series.

And House of the Dragon debuted with 741 million minutes btw. And this even though it’s also on cable (so it is on the acquired series charts). It is crushing Star Wars. And both shows cost about the same. A mere spin off of an unfinished book series and a streaming show that had a highly controversial and hated last season easily outperforms a show from what once was one of the most successful Hollywood franchises of all time. Let that sink in. And House of the Dragon also has female leads, a female showrunner, people mostly just talk. And it crushes The Acolyte. How could it ever come to this? And of course both shows have massive overlap when it comes to the audience… strange though how House of the Dragon is not “review bombed”…

Also, Disney only has four entries on the Nielsen charts. Bluey, as usual, not their IP even, Inside Out, Moana (as usual) and The Acolyte. Even Paramount+ has six entries. Disney+ is further falling behind when it comes to streaming marketshare. Iger can’t be happy about that. And the super expensive The Acolyte makes things only worse. And the upcoming shows spell disaster for Disney+, Agatha After All will almost certainly be a flop. Skeleton Crew will also probably at best have numbers similar to The Acolyte, if at all. Why should people even subscribe to Disney+, unless they want access to the old movies? Maybe Inside Out 2, once it becomes available, will give Disney+ a boost. Star Wars and Marvel certainly not. Which is just sad. Star Wars should rule supreme. The Force Awakens was one of the most watched movies of all time. And now this.

The Nielsen Streaming Charts

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