Marvel Studios’ ‘Echo’ Series Confirmed To Be Another Ratings Loser, Likely Worst Viewed Marvel Disney+ Show Ever

Marvel Studios’ Echo likely dethroned Ms. Marvel as the worst viewed Marvel Disney+ series of all time.

New data from Nielsen reveals that the show, which dropped all five episodes at once back on January 9th, only attracted 731 million minutes. That was good for fourth on Nielsen’s top 10 original list. It was well behind Netflix’s Fool Me Once, which arrived on Netflix on January 1st, Prime Video’s Reacher, which released episodes weekly after a three-episode premiere, and Netflix’s The Brothers Sun, which debuted on January 4th.

READ: ‘Echo’ Actress Alaqua Cox Confirms Show Is Part Of MSheU

While that 731 million number might seem decent, one has to remember that is for the entire show and includes all five episodes. If one were to take a simple average, each episode only garnered 146.2 million minutes viewed.

One has to also take into account that it was released on both Hulu and Disney+ significantly increasing its potential audience compared to other Marvel Studios’ Disney+ productions, which are exclusive to Disney+.

For comparison, the previous worst performing series was Ms. Marvel. When it debuted on Disney+ back on June 8th the first episode only garnered 249 million minutes viewed.

She-Hulk: Attorney-At-Law did not even chart on Nielsen’s top 10 lists when it debuted. All we know is that viewership was below 395 million minutes. It’s likely it was higher than Ms. Marvel’s 249 million minutes given the second episode did chart at 390 million minutes.

Moon Knight brought in 418 million minutes viewed when its first episode debuted on March 30, 2022.

READ: Disney+ Loses Nearly Half A Million Subscribers In The United States And Canada, An Additional 900,000 Overseas

Hawkeye’s two episode premiere on November 24, 2021 raked in 853 million minutes viewed. If you take a simple average that comes to 426.5 million minutes per episode.

WandaVision, the very first Marvel Studios’ series on Disney+, garnered 434 million minutes viewed for its two episode premiere. The simple average comes to 217 million minutes per episode.

2023’s Secret Invasion’s premiere only brought in 461 million minutes.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s March 26, 2021 premiere attracted 628 million minutes.

Finally, Loki Season 1’s premiere back in June 2021 racked up 731 million minutes.

However, it’s Season 2 premiere on October 5, 2023 only garnered 446 million minutes.

READ: ‘The Marvels’ Actress Lashana Lynch Reveals Marvel Studios Has No Clue What They’re Doing, Everything “Play-By-Play” For Her Character

These poor ratings call into question Disney CEO Bob Iger’s recent comments claiming that he has improved the company’s film and TV programming.

During The Walt Disney Company’s Q1 FY 24 Earnings Results Webcast, Iger was asked by one investor during the Q&A portion, “It seems like the operations are really starting to hum again. But I think the lifeblood of the company is always going to be the studio output; it drives so much culture. I think that’s an area that you said you’ve been spending a lot of time on. Do you think the content is also turning a corner like we see in the operations? And if so when do you think we might see some of the results of that for renewed focus on studio output?”

Iger answered, “I feel great about where we are with the studio. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that in the last year the studio had some real success. Not to suggest that we didn’t have some films that were not successful that we were really disappointed in. but we also had some great success too in the Guardians sequel and Avatar in the end of calendar ’22, but part of fiscal ’23.”

He then admitted, “One of the things that I’ve been saying before is that volume can sometimes be detrimental to quality and in our zeal to greatly increase volume partially tied to wanting to chase more global subs for our streaming platform some of our studios lost a little focus.”

“So the first step that we’ve taken is we’ve reduced volume. We’ve reduced output particularly at Marvel,” Iger shared. “When you address these issues in movies, you do three things. You get aggressive at making sure the films you’re making can be even better, sometimes you kill projects you don’t believe in, and, of course, you put  new things in the pipeline that you do believe in that you have much more confidence in. And we’re doing all of that.”

READ: Disney CEO Bob Iger Admits To Turning The Company Into His Own Political Weapon: “I Take Responsibility For This”

He continued, “I’ve also observed over the years that managing creativity is best done with great partnerships. And I have established great partnerships with the people at our company that really mange our creativity: Alan Bergman at the studio, Dana Walden on the television side, Jimmy Pitaro at ESPN. And the partnership that Alan and I have is a strong one and we believe the time that I am now devoting to this, and the attention that the two of us are giving this business not only will bear fruit, but it’s already starting too.”

“We’re very bullish about the films coming out,” he declared. “We mentioned Inside Out 2, and we talked about Deadpool, and The Planet of the Apes film. We feel good about that. And, obviously, at the end of the calendar year we’ve got Mufasa, prequel to Lion King. We’re very excited about the addition of Moana, which was the number one streamed movie across all streamers in the U.S. in ’23 and has had over a billion hours of consumption in Disney+ and that’s now going to be released in November.”

“And then I mentioned what we’re doing after that, I’d say we’re leaning a little bit more into sequels and franchises, some that we feel great about Toy Story is a for instance, obviously Star Wars, Avatar we’ve talked about. Marvel is starting to focus on its strongest franchises going forward, but I’ll leave it at that.”

“I think given the environment and what it takes to get people out of their homes to see a film, doing that, leaning on franchises that are familiar is actually a smart thing. So, we’ve got work to do still. We’re not resting on our laurels or sitting on our hands. We’re working hard at it, but I feel quite good about the trajectory,” he concluded.

Given the poor ratings for Echo, it’s clear that audiences are not as bullish as Bob Iger in believing the company has improved its film and TV programming.

In fact, given Echo is one of the worst performing Marvel Studios productions made for Disney+, it looks like their programming has gotten even worse.

What do you make of Echo’s disastrous ratings?

NEXT: Pop Culture Critic RazörFist Calls For Marvel Studios To Scrap ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Permanently After Disastrous ‘Echo’ Series