Cancellation Watch: LOTR The Rings of Power Opens Strong for Prime Video, The Sandman Enters Nielsen Streaming Top 10, and More

Streaming Viewership:

Amazon’s mega-budget Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power premiered last week with its first two episodes, and the streamer has released the preliminary viewership numbers. According to Prime Video’s tally, the show pulled in over 25 million viewers globally for those two episodes in the first day of release. That makes it the largest premiere ever for a Prime Video original and has the show off to a good start. The streamer has sunk $1 billion into the property and its success is of vital importance to the continuation of the Prime Video service.  The show did experience some early review-bombing, but that was mostly due to fans that objected to the multi-racial casting.  Other than that, the show has been well-received by critics.  It was renewed for a second season before the first premiered, and the current plan is for the show to run for five or six seasons.

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Nielsen Streaming Top 10

Netflix’s The Sandman made it into the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 for originals for the week of August 1st to 7th. That was its premiere week and it made it to the Number 3 slot with an estimated one billion minutes viewed over three days (the show debuted on Friday). Those are definitely good numbers and this one should be on track for a second season renewal, but Netflix is holding it to an even higher threshold because it is very expensive to produce. Stranger Things improved to Number 1 for the week with 1.4 billion minutes viewed over a month after the final two episodes of the fourth season were released. The Umbrella Academy slipped to Number 9 with 274 million minutes, and it will be returning for a fourth and final season next year. In the Top 10 for acquired shows, but Game of Thrones and Supernatural dropped out from last week, but the encore run of Vampire Diaries on Netflix made an appearance at Number 7 (apparently because it is on the verge of switching over to HBO Max and Peacock). Following are all the sci fi and fantasy TV shows on the streaming charts for the week (the number in parenthesis is the prior week rank):

Nielsen Streaming Rankings for the Week of Aug-1 to Aug-7

Streaming Originals
1 (2) Stranger Things (Netflix) 1.4 Billion Minutes
3 (n/a) The Sandman (Netflix) 1 Billion Minutes
9 (8) The Umbrella Academy (Netflix) 274 Million Minutes

Acquired Shows
7 (n/a) Vampire Diaries (Netflix) 376 Million Minutes

Source: Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings (Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, and Apple TV+), Nielsen National TV Panel, U.S. Viewing Through Television

Netflix Top 10:

In the Netflix Non-English Language charts, Alchemy of Souls improved to Number 3 for the week of August 22nd to 28th. That was its eighth straight week in the charts and it pulled in 29 million hours of viewing. The second half of its first season is due out later this year.  In the Top 10 for English Language shows, The Sandman slipped to Number 2. That was its fourth week of release, but it still managed to pull in 54 million hours of viewing. Stranger Things Season 4 held at Number 4 with 24 million hours viewed while the third and final season of Locke & Key slipped to Number 8 with 15 million hours viewed.  Following are all the sci fi and fantasy TV shows on the Netflix charts for the week (the number in parenthesis is the prior week rank):

Netflix Top 10 for the Week of Aug-22 to Aug-28

English Language Shows
2 (1) The Sandman 53.8 Million Hours
4 (4) Stranger Things: Season 4 23.6 Million Hours
5 (4) Manifest: Season 1 19.1 Million Hours
8 (4) Locke & Key: Season 3 14.6 Million Hours

Non-English Language Shows
3 (5) Alchemy of Souls: Season 1 28.6 Million Hours

Source: Netflix

Linear Ratings Results of Interest:

On Wednesday, Stargirl returned for its third season but only managed a 0.07 rating based on same-day viewing for the 18-49 demographic with 501K total viewers. That marks a series low for the show and that is definitely not a good start with new owners taking over the network. We will see how this one tracks in the coming weeks, but it could end up being yet another casualty at The CW.

On Thursday, FXX’s Little Demon improved to a 0.11 rating in the demo with 256K viewers. That is a good sign that its numbers improved from its premiere, and if the digital and delayed viewing looks good, this one could be on track for a second season.

On Sunday, HBO’s House of the Dragon slipped to a 0.37 rating with 1.8 million total viewers.  Those are still good numbers for a cable show, and this one has already been renewed for a second season.  Over on AMC, Tales of the Walking Dead slipped to a 0.09 rating with 409K total viewers. It seems unlikely that the network would cancel one of its TWD entries, but don’t count it as impossible at this point.

You can see the full, season-to-date ratings for the sci fi and fantasy shows at this link, and below are the ratings for the genre shows from the past week. Ratings Source: ShowBuzzDaily

Ratings Results for the Week of 8/29/22

CancelledSciFi.com: Keep up with the status updates of all the currently airing sci fi and fantasy shows with our Cancellation Watch posts. And be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site  for breaking news and updates.

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