Very interesting viewing figures have landed via Variety, and they make for encouraging reading for Star Wars fans and viewers of The Acolyte. With the Leslye Headland run show the only non-Netflix show in the top 10 streaming originals, it seems the estimated minutes watched compared to the previous week is up, by 81%. Screen Rant break down those figures.
The real winner of the week here is, of course, Netflix. The streaming giant release multiple episodes at a time, whereas The Acolyte – the only entry from any other streaming service – only dropped a single episode last week. This means we’re effectively comparing four episodes of Bridgerton season 3 to just a single Star Wars episode; it’s not like for like.
The next qualification is in terms of the period covered. Luminate’s data runs from June 7 to 13, meaning it covers the weekend after The Acolyte episodes 1 and 2. It’s reasonable to assume a lot of viewers waited until the weekend to check out the latest Star Wars TV show. We won’t really get a measure of the show’s success until there’s more data. Even a comparison of weekends 1 and 2 won’t be representative, because the premiere dropped two episodes and only one released last week.
Still, Disney will be quite pleased with The Acolyte‘s performance here. The Acolyte is literally the only non-Netflix show to appear in the top ten for that period, suggesting it’s a success. The scale of that success will become clear over the weeks, as we get a sense of whether viewers stuck around or dropped off.
Here in the UK the show enjoyed a similarly impressive jump, rising from number 7 last week to number 4 this week, although the Netflix stranglehold on the US charts isn’t replicated here with Prime, Sky, BBC and Apple TV all present along with Netflix.
