We told you the Nielsen ratings were coming… and there they are.
In near-record time for Nielsen, we’re finding out that when it comes to “minutes watched” for the first weekend of a Stranger Things debut, Season 4 came out swinging big time. The show tallied more than 5.1 billion minutes watched, placing it as the third most-watched show of all time in its opening weekend. This lines up very well with Netflix’s announcement last week that Stranger Things Season 4 had the biggest English language twenty-four hour release in history with 286.7 million hours watched. It should be noted that Nielsen only tracks smart TVs, so the actual number of hours watched over the full weekend could be even higher.
Stranger Things Hours on Forbes
Meanwhile, when it comes to Obi-Wan Kenobi, the series fell far short of Stranger Things and it is clear some publications are trying to cover this up a bit. From Dade Hayes Deadline:
Obi-Wan, with shorter and fewer episodes, had a more subdued launch with about 1 billion minutes. Even so, its debut was the biggest ever for Disney+ and it also made history as the first non-film title to hit 1 billion minutes of viewing in its first week. (Marvel series Loki reached that threshold but only after a handful of episodes were in circulation.)
So there are a couple of issues here. First, there’s no reason that people shouldn’t have loved the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi and rewatched the episodes enough to bolster these stats. We clearly saw that with The Mandalorian Season 2 finale… and yes, that finale bested the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi combined with ease:
The latest numbers report from The Hollywood Reporter has indicated that Peyton Reed’s crowd-pleasing season finale, featuring an unexpected and entirely welcome appearance from Luke Skywalker in his prime, helped push The Mandalorian to become the most-watched streaming television series in the week that it premiered. Not only that, but it was the most-watched show period at 1.34 billion minutes streamed from the 16 episodes that have currently been released. — StarWars.net
Things get far worse for Obi-Wan Kenobi when we start really digging into the situation. For starters, Obi-Wan Kenobi launched with two episodes. If we compare its two-episode viewership to other Disney+ original content two-episode viewership, we find that there’s a significant decline. For example, Loki came in with 1.6 billion hours watched for its first two episodes. Obi-Wan Kenobi only picked up 1.1 billion hours. Given that Disney+ has far more subscribers today than when Loki premiered, that’s a steep drop.
Finally, the trades are protecting Obi-Wan Kenobi a bit more when they tow the company line that this is the biggest thing on Disney+ ever. That’s completely untrue. The biggest thing ever was Encanto, and not by a little. What the trades are failing to clarify is that they’re talking about “original content shows over a debut week when Disney+ has never released an original content show with two episodes.” That’s a heck of a caveat. So what was the biggest debut for Disney+ when Encanto debuted?
According to Nielsen, Encanto picked up a bonkers 2.2 billion minutes of streaming time on Disney+ towards the end of December.
— That Park Place
And guess what? Encanto has a shorter run time than the two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi combined.
In review, here are the objective truths you should know:
- Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1 is the third biggest streaming show of all time.
- Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1 earned over 5 billion watched hours in seven days.
- Obi-Wan Kenobi had about a fifth of those hours watched in seven days.
- Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1 had roughly 1.5 million more viewers on smart televisions.
- The claims being made about Obi-Wan Kenobi breaking Disney+ records are misleading at best.
- Stranger Things clearly has more content to watch but there’s no reason Obi-Wan should be limited to single-time watch-thrus.
Finally, the news doesn’t get any better for Disney. The second part of Stranger Things’ season is coming and it’s a four-hour extravaganza. At that point, Stranger Things may be topping 8, 9, even 10 billion hours watched. Seriously. I don’t think it will top 10 billion, but it’s hard to understand how this isn’t going to be the biggest show of all time by the point of its finale.
Does that mean you must hate Obi-Wan Kenobi or that this website is intrinsically against the show? No. Absolutely, 100% no. But we’re not going to pretend that Obi-Wan Kenobi is on the same level as Stranger Things or Top Gun Maveric, and we’re not going to pretend that Disney is telling the truth about this. Obi-Wan Kenobi is, so far, less popular than Loki but probably watched more than The Book of Boba Fett. And while we know that Stranger Things is about to blow up huge and real records for streaming, the future is not so clear for Obi-Wan Kenobi. That’s not because we hate it or we’re out to get it… it’s because the audience score is far different than Stranger Things.
This may be hard for some to understand. The idea that Star Wars is this far diminished is difficult for some to accept. Our job at this site is now to accurately portray how this is likely to impact Star Wars and Lucasfilm. All I can tell you is that coming in with far less than half of your main competitor is probably not how Lucasfilm is going to succeed. Maybe they should have released half the season, right? Maybe it should have been better? Maybe it shouldn’t have been divisive? I don’t know what the answer might be in your opinion, but I can tell you that there’s no way around coming in lower than Stranger Things, lower than Loki, lower than Encanto… it’s not a winning hand. Because when it’s time to go to the advertisers to pitch your price points, they don’t care about anything except the hours watched. And that not-a-winning-hand is about to be repeated come July. Maybe it will be worse.
For all the latest news that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place! As always, drop a comment down below.
Update 8:43 PM EST, 6/6/22
According to an industry expert I spoke with, the numbers from Nielsen may be quite confusing the way they’re presented in the trades. Even though the numbers are provided for a seven-day tally, Nielsen only measures on a less-than-seven system. I will be consulting with the expert later tonight for clarification and will update in the morning as needed.
Update 10:00 AM EST 6/7/22
Resolved an error for runtime of Stranger Things. Huge thanks to Kevin for pointing out the error!
Why would anyone compare Stranger Things to Obi-Wan? Stranger Things is the biggest show on TV right now.
Disney needs to be able to compete with blockbuster shows like Stranger Things in order for Disney+ to succeed as a streaming platform. Disney+ is one of Disney’s top priorities right now, if not the top priority. Disney is one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world, with many of their IPs being known worldwide.
Their premier shows should not be playing second fiddle (or worse) to any of Netflix’s properties. We should be seeing signs of them at least starting to catch up to Netflix, but there has been very little sign of major public excitement for Disney+ products since The Mandalorian. Saying Netflix and Disney aren’t competing for eyeballs is disingenuous at best. CNBC disagrees: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/19/netflix-is-the-biggest-winner-since-disney-kicked-off-streaming-wars.html
Netflix has 220M subscribers. Disney+ has 138M.
Was any one (outside of this site) actually calling for Obi-Wan to have better ratings than Stranger Things? A new series on familiar characters vs. the most popular TV show on the most popular streaming service?
The ratings thus far out of Nielsen are only for North America, so the total subscribers globally aren’t useful for determining a percentage. I know all of this is complicated. I spoke with quite the expert last night for more than an hour on the topic.
With so many unanswered questions I’m not sure why you chose such a sensational headline.
Because the numbers are what the numbers are. We can justify or move the numbers in our minds however we’d like, but the numbers remain. Lucasfilm could have dropped all their episodes at once and taken on Stranger Things directly — they didn’t. And even when we compare episode-to-episode, they were beat by 1.5 million viewers in North America where there isn’t a huge advantage either way. We’re talking the return of Kenobi v Vader, something that should be a cultural moment.
I have a conversation with Valliant Renegade and Force of Light dropping later today. Listen in and I think you’ll see where I’m coming from.
You’re kidding, right? Star Wars is probably the most recognizable property/franchise in the world… Obi-Wan is one of the most popular characters in the franchise, and this has been one of the most highly anticipated series for Star Wars fans.
Why wouldn’t you make the comparison to Stranger Things, #1, and why would you not think Star Wars fans would subscribe to Disney+ for this new show, #2?
Let’s acknowledge that Star Wars isn’t as big as Stranger Things.
Star Wars…
Disney is ending Star Wars and every new show they harm the remaining fans.
How is Andor and Bad Batch harming fans?
If in the end, the advertisers agree with you, what is next for Lucasfilm? What do you guess or know is the next step – how will this impact Star Wars/Lucasfilm?
PS If Netflix continues to lose subscribers, (they already forecasted 2 million for this quarter, perhaps they will be incorrect because of Stranger Thing’s success) – if so though, advertisers will not be happy with them either; the performance of Stranger Things will only be a gold star “that’s nice”/pat them on the head concept.
I’m obviously not WDW Pro, but it seems to me that all the streaming companies are facing retrenchment to some extent, not just Disney and Netflix. Competition in the streaming sector is ferocious at a time when the quality of newer shows/movies seems to be in decline and few works seem to be able to capture the imagination of audiences. I expect ad revenues for all of these platforms to decline.
The problem is Disney+ doesn’t have any viable franchises. All their shows are not rewatchable. They burn out well before the end of their brief 6 to 8 episodes season. They only want to subvert fan expectations. Rewrite the character motivations. Bait and switch side characters for main characters. Gender and racial swap. Kenobi’s first episode was terrific. Same like Moon Knight’s great first episode. Then the decline happens almost like routine. There’s no crescendo to the climax. We already seen the best episode. Even worse is Boba Fett was never good. Worse than bad.
I think it’s a safe bet that the best is yet to come from this show.
You say that from your own high expectations, but experience is Disney will disappoint.
Experience also says Mando was the biggest TV show, especially after the unexpected return of Luke.
Disregard/delete this comment. It didn’t show up after page reload.
Experience also showed the unexpected can happen, like Mando being the biggest D+ show, or Luke Skywalker returning at the end of S2.
That’s a track record of one show with an uncertain future after the firing of Gina Carano. Star Wars and Marvel is not in good hands.
Firing Gina threw a wrench into the works, but she’s not vital to Star Wars. I think people just like her because she stuck it to Twitter weirdos and got herself fired for it, not because she brought anything valuable to the brand. She can be recast, written out, or even invited back once Kennedy is gone. But the weight is carried by Mando, Grogu, and the legacy characters. To suggest that there won’t be future seasons of Mando because of Gina is nonsense, and Rangers of the New Republic is in a stage where it can be reworked. It’s not in production or shooting.
Star Wars is in good hands, but still suffers interference from within. The idea that this is KK’s Star Wars is simply wrong, despite appearances.
Comparing show premieres is fair enough, but comparing those to genre films, season finales, or entire show runs is just comparing apples and oranges. We’re three episodes into Obi-Wan and you seriously want me to think it’s doing worse because it doesn’t have nearly as much watch time as, what, 10 episodes of Stranger Things all dropped in one day?
“Does that mean you must hate Obi-Wan Kenobi or that this website is intrinsically against the show? No. Absolutely, 100% no.”
You’re against it enough to
A) Breathlessly report about how much better Top Gun Maverick and Stranger Things are doing,
B) Hound the show for its controversies in the fandom or political spheres, and
C) not correcting simple mistakes on your site’s articles that just so happen to play to the bias that this show is The Last Jedi 2–an utterly false hyperbole.
C) is the most damning evidence that, despite everything you might get right, and whether by intention or by accident, you have not given the show a fair shake. It seems like either emotionally or financially, there’s too much riding on this train to do otherwise.
Mike, how do you like your employer’s stock options? Or is it stock grants? At what point would you like Disney to pursue fan success versus political lecture.
People are holding onto hope that Disney falls back in love with their fans.
At this point, Disney is taking a dump in our beds while beating us through Twitter.
The fans are Johnny Depp. We are angry and throwing plates, but Disney is Amber Heard. Disney demands our attention and our money. Disney insults us through Twitter posts(calling us racist). Disney claims they are good at their job, but the fans are the reason they have the job.
We are not very far from dumping Disney as a fan base. Disney is already losing bloggers.
Just know that it can’t stay 2018 forever. Eventually the change will be more apparent, but as for right now, change is happening silently behind the scenes and subtly in the content we’re watching. You have to have some industry insight to know when, where, and how to read between the lines. But you’ll never be able to do that if you’re not willing to believe things can and will get better. Sometimes you can’t boil the situation down to an easy analogy.
All the reasons in the world don’t change that ST had 5x the watch time and 1.5 million more viewers. Whether that’s because Lucasfilm should have dropped more episodes or had a different date, potential advertisers are going to look at those two numbers, period.
Also, if Disney+ has far more subscribers now yet Loki has far more viewers for its first two episodes, you’d better believe I’m going to call out the “record views” BS. What other website knows this stuff well enough and has the ratings chronicled to say it’s word salad used to achieve fake records? They did the exact same thing with Turning Red and we called them out on it there as well. That’s why we’re here – the access media will go along with misleading press releases and narratives. We don’t.
Another couple facts that were conveniently left out of this article:
Stranger Things runtime available first week = 76 + 75 + 63 + 77 + 74 + 73 + 98 = 536 minutes
Obi-Wan runtime available first week = 56 + 42 = 98 minutes
98 / 536 = 18% = If the shows had the same number of viewers per minute, then Obi should have 18% of the total views compared to Stranger Things Season 4.
By your numbers, Obi-Wan had 20% of the total watch time compared to Stranger Things, we are looking at very similar numbers of people watching on a per-minute basis and Obi actually out-performed ST4 on the per-minute basis.
That is not to say Obi is better or worse than ST4. It is to say that both are huge successes for their companies.
Fair enough. Let’s dive into my thoughts on this and see if we can agree on a few complex things that might not be readily apparent.
We know directly that 1.5 million more people watched Stranger Things. And while the watch time numbers may seem logical and straightforward, they make three assumptions that I don’t accept:
1. Stranger Things fans all watched all seven episodes. Instead, I expect the second week to be bigger than the first as people wade through seven movies worth of content
2. Kenobi couldn’t be rewatched. With that small amount of content, you would expect Kenobi to be rewatched significantly. We don’t see that, however. Why was it not rewatched a ton like Encanto was – Encanto being a secondary release on Disney+ that nearly doubled Kenobi’s debut?
3. Your math assumes Nielsen’s smart TV findings paint the full picture. I don’t. Studies have previously shown that the longer the content runtime the higher mobile watching goes up as a percentage of the audience. That likely indicates Stranger Things may have even better ratings. That’s also likely why Netflix releases their hard data and Disney did not.
Those are some things to think about, but I certainly appreciate your pushback. Keep reading and keep commenting.
You mentioned movies in point #1. Thinking on that tangent, what if the apparently lower watch time for Obi-Wan can be accounted for by people watching other Star Wars content on D+? Specifically the Prequels, or the animated TV shows? Perhaps even Mando or Boba Fett? Maybe the watch behavior is simply different because of the franchise, and isn’t adequately evaluated by a straight, even proportional number comparison.
The remaining points you made seem to again boil down to apples and oranges, or in the case of Stranger Things, the quantity of available content to watch or binge. Perhaps a more fair comparison can be made when all 6 episodes are available to binge, same as Stranger Things.
Maybe this is also why Disney considers this show a hit. They haven’t revealed how they judge the success of the show or its viability for an extension; rumor has it now that Reva will survive and either a second season or a “sequel show” is in the works, that will continue the overall story being told in the space between RotS and ANH.
You make a great final point. We’re actually tracking all of the ratings here as they become available so that we can compare once both shows have put everything on the table.
Again your thoughts are clouded by what you want to happen. I’m not a fan of the D politics and it is ruining the company, however, that does not preclude them from being able to make quality content. Netflix has morally questionable content as well, so neither of these 2 giants are my favorites right now. You also assume that because there were certain ideologues inside of Disney that were unchecked, means that they still are running unchecked. That is not what I see happening.
You guys nearly lost my viewership on this platform with your negativity towards D+. Doomcock and Midnights Edge did lose my viewership as they are so focused on the negative and are actively looking for negative instead of looking for the good. Lorn’s Sympathy article is the reason I’m still here. It actually looked at the good and bad fairly, as opposed to just looking for things to shread.
To your points:
1. We shall see with time what actually happens. Right now it is speculation and you feel how you feel. That is great.
2. Of course Obi was rewatched, and it is a distinct possibility that it is rewatched more than ST4…that would seem to indicate that people like it.
3. Again, of course, they don’t paint a full picture. And neither was this article. The Netflix paid subscribers (numbers I found easily online) are 221.6M and D+ is 137.7M. That means that D+ has 62% of the viewership numbers of Netflix, or said another way, Netflix has 1.6x more eyeballs to watch their shows vs D+. Based on the numbers, Netflix SHOULD have had more people watching and more hours watched simply based on hours available and number of subscribers to watch those hours.
Is it possible that this show is a bate and switch? Of course. To this point is it? No. Could it go that way with Reva? Yes or no… we will see as the show runs through the season. If I only watch the show, I am really enjoying it. There are no broken continuity issues at this point that I have seen (yes, I know the GI appears to be dead…the writers have said they know he is alive in Rebels and wanted to surprise people and also they said his species has 2 stomachs, so not a death sentence AND yes Obi knew Anakin was Vader, he just didn’t know Anakin was alive, that was the shock), and they have some issues to clean up…why doesn’t Leia act like she knows Obi in ANH is the biggest. Basically, there are 3 more episodes of content that they need to release and then we can judge did they actually break continuity.
I’m not saying that ST4 is better than Obi or vice versa. They are both HUGE hits.
I came to this website to get the scoop on what might happen, and in the beginning, you guys were Disney fans. Now that is not the case. If you hear things and assume the worst, you can also assume that you will lose many of your fans that joined you when you actually liked Disney.
And that is why I stopped listening to so many of the “TY fans channels,” since they stopped giving things a chance.
Well said. To comment on the issue of Leia knowing Ben by having spent time with him, I think this issue is diminished or resolved when you consider the urgency in which Leia found herself constantly in ANH. It’s very plausible to see she wouldn’t waste time mentioning her kidnapping at 10 years old and her adventure with Ben because it’s not relevant to the situation at hand: getting the Death Star plans to Base One and immediately launching an attack before the Death Star can get in range of the planet to blow it up. Even that moment where Leia consoles Luke is cut short by the TIE Fighter attack. Maybe Leia and Luke discuss Ben in the interim of the OT episodes, but it’s not necessary for them to have forecasted this show by talking about the events of it then, during the three films.
I can grant it was a continuity risk to have Leia featured in the show, but not a grave one. It can and does work. I don’t care much for how it justifies why she would name her son Ben retrospectively, but I can allow that if it means making a good show and doing right by her character, which they are doing; also if it means pacifying the KK contingent until they leave. There is also a fear or a prejudice that it takes potential time away between Luke and Ben, but this is an arbitrary complaint that’s not relevant to the issue. Anyways, I think, in good faith, that Ben and Luke will at least share a scene together before the series is over. After all, Luke has met Ben before ANH. It only makes sense.
I appreciate that you’re doing that, but I don’t appreciate the strong bias toward finding fault, especially imaginary ones. Doing so makes me wary and question even your honest efforts at questioning what mainstream news accepts. The comment thread from John S. is a good case-in-point for how you might be wrong even now, let alone what might happen in the future.
That has to be an error, right? Eight-hour part 2? Did you mean four?
Good catch. Yes, that was an error. Fixing it.