Cobra Kai and House of the Dragon Show What Popular Really Looks Like

Put aside all the debate about some shows and their success or failure. A few entries in Nielsen’s ratings are at a different tier of winning altogether.

There’s been a lot of talk about ratings lately for streaming properties. A debate is ongoing about Rings of Power versus House of the Dragon. Which one is more popular when House of the Dragon’s ratings are largely hidden by being split between streaming and cable? We could go into a definitive answer here, but hang in there, that’s not the topic because there’s something larger to discuss. Likewise, the internet has been filled with discussions about whether or not She-Hulk is an utter failure or a middle-of-the-road “meh”. And was The Book of Boba Fett really a disaster or was it a popular series? What about Obi-Wan?

Much of the inability to determine a property’s success or failure is driven by the companies that own them. It’s 100% in the favor of the streaming services if they are able to crow about their successes and hide their flops. When a Disney+ or Netflix show does great, you can be sure the company will send out press releases with in-depth detail. When a show does poorly, there’s often nothing said about it… and the company holds most of the cards when it comes to how bad it might be. The sole exception seems to be the Nielsen ratings, which have become just about the only worthwhile third party ratings publisher for streaming. But even Netflix stays on the good side of the big streamers by limiting their public releases to “top ten” categories. Thus, we can’t really see just how badly non-trending streaming shows and movies are doing.

Despite our lack of hard data for streaming in the way that we have hard financial data for box office releases, there is something we can easily find out on the opposite end of the spectrum from what we’ve discussed thus far. We can measure success.

Over the last few weeks, people have been talking about She-Hulk. Some have claimed that because it managed to hit the top ten for original shows via the Nielsen ratings, She-Hulk was a success. Even one of the main actors has been out there claiming the show was #1 at some point. Of course that’s nonsense, but we have now the ratings from Cobra Kai and we should do a comparison. Cobra Kai is largely heralded by just about everyone who has watched it. It’s not a cultural zeitgeist like Squid Games or Stranger Things, but it’s definitely up there. So how did it do when it was released onto Netflix with its latest, perhaps final, season?

Here’s the top three for the second week of September:

Pos, Platform, Title, Minutes in Millions

— Nielsen

So we know what success looks like. Cobra Kai neared in on two billion minutes watched. When it comes time for advertising revenue to hit the big streamers, those minutes are going to be one of only two things that matter. Episodes won’t matter, content time won’t matter… only watch-time and budgets will count. Watch-time will determine how many ads can be shown (except in Disney’s case where they may purposefully cap ads for single episodes in order to hide poorly performing series) and that revenue will be compared to the overall budget. Not all the budget needs to be covered by ad revenues, but you can bet that as we transition to ad-based funding, it’s going to be a huge factor. That’s also why a show like Rings of Power may be in the Top Three and still a failure — spending a billion dollars on a show means you have to dominate ratings to have a successful RoI.

Now let me show you two entries from September that are similar in watch-time but are vastly different in success:

Yes, She-Hulk may have broken into a weak Top Five, but it still couldn’t top half-a-billion minutes watched. Compare that to Cobra Kai which debuted with more than triple She-Hulk’s ratings. Whatever excuse you might come up with for that situation, Cobra Kai will decimate She-Hulk in the next week as well. Cobra Kai likely has a far smaller budget. Cobra Kai is clearly the much greater success. Devil in Ohio is the same. And that means that Disney+ has a big Marvel movie that is in a different tier from the actually successful shows we watch for. Perhaps just as important, She-Hulk is actually being beaten by Stranger Things, even as Stranger Things hasn’t had a new episode since early July. That’s success.

But again, if you’re a low resolution thinker on this topic, you might see She-Hulk in the Top Five and think it’s doing great. It’s not. It’s like seeing Bros hit third place in the dead of a dismal October box office and then think, “third place is a great win!” No… because Independence Day Weekend this is not. Similarly, She-Hulk can’t crack half-a-million minutes watched… there’s no good to be found once you realize that. For comparison, Loki more than doubled those ratings last summer, and Loki had a fraction of the Disney+ subscribers to pull from.

If we go to the Acquired Top Ten for the same month, we’re reminded of success in comparison to what Disney+ is stuck in:

HBO Max isn’t spending a dime on Game of Thrones, yet if you look at this singular Game of Thrones franchise that now includes the original plus House of the Dragon, it’s at the top of the ratings: even higher than Cobra Kai. That’s not including cable. So if you want to measure success, that’s a heck of a thing. Nearly half the ratings for HBO Max’s top franchise are being derived with zero production or advertising expenditures. That’s a win-win-win-win!

Another writer is going to tackle the ratings for movies on streaming later today (there’s a major bit of news there that needs its own article). When it comes to just the shows though, here are your winners in no particular order:

Game of Thrones / House of the Dragon, Stranger Things, Cobra Kai

But Why Does It Matter?

You’ve made it to the bottom of this article, so let’s think briefly about an important and not-so-obvious question: why does any of this really matter? Is it just about streaming bragging rights? Is it just about predictions and bragging about having it right? Or is there something more?

The reason we do these types of articles week after week is because they’re hugely important. What’s happening is that companies are purposefully attempting to obscure and manipulate data regarding the reception of their entertainment properties. It’s totally in their interest to do so. But as a consequence, it makes it very difficult for all of us to figure out what is happening with society and culture. How an audience nationally and/or globally reacts to a movie or show is indicative of where we are and where we are going as a society. So, we take the time here to really dive into the statistics that are available and ignore the corporate narrative/spin. That’s not always easy because the corporate messaging is often most of what is being used by other sites to determine success and failure.

So if you’ve read this article, you know what’s really driving eyeballs at home. A karate nostalgia show, a sci-fi and horror nostalgia show, and a gritty fantasy show. None of them are ideological or “woke”. None of them are anti-masculinity or pro-feminism. None of them are postmodern. If they were, that would be fine — we’d note it. But they’re not, and that means you and I can predict where the market is going. Because we’re seeing past the corporate spin to a close approximation of what their executives are actually looking at.

Pretty cool, eh?

For all the latest news that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place. As always, drop a comment down below and let us know what you think!