The Nielsen Streaming Charts For Andor - The Finale
Nielsen have added the final batch of Andor episodes, that is episodes 10 – 12, to their charts. So how did Andor do? One could say “pretty well”. How well? Andor was the #1 most watched streaming content in North America with its finale. Yes, it’s actually number one on the general streaming charts, making it a super rare victory for Disney+. And even better: Rogue One entered the Nielsen top 10 movie charts! Click through for all the details!
Having a good time
Andor has accomplished something only The Mandalorian had managed thus far: it is not only the #1 original streaming series on the Nielsen charts, it is also the #1 overall streamed content in the US and Canada. In week 4 Andor has 931 million minutes watchtime. And since competition from Netflix was somewhat weaker that week, that’s good enough to take the top spot.
And Andor left so much of an impression that quite a few people decided to watch Rogue One immediately after! The now almost 9-year-old movie managed to enter the top 10 movie streaming charts in 9th place with 179 million minutes watchtime! No other Star Wars series ever has managed to boost one of the movies so it makes a top 10 appearance on the movie charts!
Of course the numbers are boosted by the fact Andor released three episodes at once each week. So how does it actually compare in theoretical views, when I divide watchtime by runtime? For this I will not be comparing week 4 numbers, but finale numbers, which I think is more interesting.
Andor S2 – finale: 7.51 million views
Andor S1 – finale: 12.44 million views
The Acolyte – finale: 7.15 million views
Ahsoka S1 – finale: 12.30 million views
The Book of Boba Fett – finale: 15.03 million views
Obi-Wan Kenobi – finale: 17.79 million views
The Mandalorian S2 – finale: 25.99 million views
The Mandalorian S3 – finale: 30.84 million views
And here is a chart that compares the finale numbers as reported by Nielsen for all the Marvel and Star Wars shows we have data for:
Click to enlarge
Skeleton Crew is missing because we have no Nielsen top 10 data. Echo is missing because Disney released the entire season on the same day and thus it never had a “finale”. In absolute numbers Echo had 731 million minutes in week 1 – and immediately dropped out of the charts the following week, which makes Echo – probably – the least watched original Marvel or Star Wars series to date (Ironheart is coming up though). Skeleton Crew may have better numbers, but we can’t say with absolute certainty. We have approximate numbers for the first five weeks through the Luminate 2024 year end report and Skeleton Crew had about 1 billion minutes total watchtime as measured by Luminate by then, with data that is not including any of the early January episodes (and thus does not include the finale), of course Nielsen and Luminate numbers do often differ at least somewhat. But this would suggest Skeleton Crew did handily beat Echo in terms of total watchtime.
In terms of (theoretical) views the Andor finale barely manages to beat The Acolyte. And the charts also tell you once again what a phenomenon The Mandalorian was, even the season 3 finale had pretty impressive numbers. There are a few things of note here though. For one, no data for Skeleton Crew exists, so it is absent here, we don’t know how it performed, since it never entered the streaming charts. And you may be surprised about why the season 2 Luke Skywalker finale had lower numbers than the season 3 Moff Gideon showdown finale for The Mandalorian. Well, season 2 was released around the Christmas holidays and season 2 remained on the charts for a few more weeks after the finale dropped, and overall, if we just use the data from the top 10 that is available to us, season 2 of The Mandalorian had about 40% more views than season 3, if you add the watchtime the show had after the finale.
But I mentioned this before: I think it’s a very lopsided comparison if we look at numbers for a show that releases a full 2h15min movie each week vs a show that releases 30 – 40 minute episodes. This will result in very different viewing habits and makes (theoretical) views not really a meaningful comparison.
I talked about potential reasons for the relatively low number of views for Andor season 2 before, to quickly sum it all up again: maybe the show did lose viewers after almost 3 years of waiting, maybe viewing habits have changed and fewer people use devices tracked by Nielsen or, and this is supported by the Luminate charts data we have, more people waited for the show to release all episodes this time so they can binge it all over the next few weeks. Andor was still on the Luminate charts three weeks after the finale, which is pretty much unheard of, most Star Wars series immediately drop out of the top 10 the week after the finale, only exception is The Mandalorian really.
So it will be really interesting to see what the Nielsen numbers will be next week and if Andor can remain in the top 10. If it remains in the top 10 it would support the Luminate data and be a clear indicator that more people binge the series this time around.
Still, in absolute numbers Andor is a huge PR win for Disney. It is their first overall #1 streaming show (and even general streaming contentl) in North America (US and Canada) in years. Even The Mandalorian was usually beaten by some Netflix show because of the different release schedules. And total watchtime is not unimportant, even if other metrics such as new subscribers added and subscriber retention are even more important. But it’s a good number to communicate to investors and the competition. And if you add the fact that Andor managed to catapult Rogue One into the movie charts (which makes Rogue One the first Star Wars movie ever to enter the streaming charts) it’s even more of a PR win. Andor clearly left an impression and made people go watch the movie immediately after. Which means Star Wars as a whole had about 1.1 billion minutes of watchtime owed to Andor/Rogue One alone.
It’s also interesting to look at absolute watchtime over the entire season: Andor, thus far, has accumulated 3,303 million minutes of watchtime for its twelve season 2 episodes. And it is interesting to compare this with a typical Netflix release, who release entire seasons on the same day, and those shows get anything between 1.5 – 2.5 billion minutes in one week (usually), one reason why Nielsen shows usually dominate the charts is their release schedule with whole seasons released on the same day (or sometimes the first half of a season). And compared with that Andor is right up there with any of the #1 Netflix shows. As a point of rerefence, Andor season had 1 approximately 4.6 million minutes watchtime, the number is only an estimate, because in week 9 the series failed to enter the charts, but it probably had something like 380 million minutes watchtime that week (which is in line with the other episodes before and after). If Andor season 2 can add some more watchtime on the charts (season 1 dropped out of the charts following the finale) it could still match the season 1 numbers. But of course the season 1 numbers are for 10 weeks, not just four. So again, it’s apples and oranges really. Chances are very high that once season 2 had as much time as season 1 to accumulate watchtime numbers will be pretty similar or maybe even slightly better.
So as with all things in life the ratings sitation is nuanced. While theoretical views are low absolute numbers are fantastic for Andor on Disney+. The streaming service scores a rare victory on the charts with Andor, and this after Skeleton Crew failed to chart even once and The Acolyte was more of a dud, to the point Lucasfilm felt compelled to tell everyone that the series is actually cancelled, something they have done for no other show ever before, even Skeleton Crew has not been officially cancelled.
Acolyte fans may bitterly ask why Andor with (theoretical) views that are barely better than The Acolyte’s is communicated as a success whereas The Acolyte has been consigned to the dustbin and is considered a failure. For one Andor created nothing but positive press, even people who do not care for it at worst say “it’s not for them”, it did not create hate, in fact, even the usual people who hate almost all things Disney Star Wars on YouTube and elsewhere think the show is excellent. And it is pretty much undisputed that Andor has the best writing and the best acting of all the Star Wars shows, something you definitely could not say for The Acolyte.
And when we look at that Parrot Analytics report we see that Andor earned Disney quite a bit more money than The Acolyte, because it added more new subscribers and had better subscriber retention. This is why Andor is much more of a success than The Acolyte, even if in weekly views the two shows are pretty much evenly matched.
And now the only question left is whether or not Andor can stay in the Nielsen top 10 for a few more weeks or not.
I will keep reporting the Andor charts should the show still be on the top 10 Nielsen charts next week.
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