As Nielsen continues to reinvent and reestablish itself in a changing media market, what can we glean from its latest Top 10 charts? Blake & Wang P.A entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake, walks us through the May 15-21 results.
Ted Lasso Takes a Bow
In many ways, the success of Ted Lasso for Apple TV+ was one of its breakout moments, even attracting awards attention. With the Season 3 finale looming large, especially as it could be the last for the series, it’s unsurprising to see it make an entrance into the Nielsen data, taking the 4th slot with 769M minutes viewed- its highest entrance to date. That may, of course, change quickly when we hit the actual finale!
Surprisingly, after a bit of a box office flop, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania also made its way to No 5 for Disney+ at 766M minutes, not bad for a film.
Netflix Tops, Again
Both Queen Charlotte, the Bridgerton spinoff, and new IP The Mother performed outstandingly well for Netflix, taking the No 2 (1.1B minutes) and No 1 (1.2B minutes) slots respectively. More unusually, NCIS took No 3 for both Netflix and Paramount+, as a dual-streamed program. We see a similar three-way split for S.W.A.T lower on the list (No 8), again showing across Netflix, Hulu, and Paramount+. Disney+’s Bluey is the only non-Netflix title lower on the list, with Cocomelon, A Man Called Otto, and Queer Eye finishing the Top 10 for them.
On the so-called ‘acquired programming list, we see another win for Prime Video with the consistent performer The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, taking No 5 for that category and 443M minutes. Succession, unsurprisingly, continued to tick up with 550M minutes- and that is on HBO Max (now just Max) alone, without the HBO viewership considered as Nielsen doesn’t track it. Amazon’s Air also managed to make a solid showing at the No. 6 slot and 404M viewing minutes.
All in all, this particular Nielsen week was a grand one for Netflix despite Ted Lasso’s record, indicative of the firm hold the streaming platform still has on the market.
Film and Television 