The Book of Boba Fett debuted in the top 10 of Nielsen’s streaming rankings, but it came up well short of the No. 1 spot — which was claimed by Cobra Kai as the calendar switched to 2022.
The Star Wars series opened with 389 million minutes of viewing time on Disney+ in the week of Dec. 27-Jan. 2, good for eighth place among original series on Nielsen’s chart. It did, however, likely have the largest number of viewers for the week: With a 39-minute running time, The Book of Boba Fett’s premiere equates to an average audience of about 10 million viewers.
By comparison, season two of The Mandalorian drew more than a billion minutes of viewing time the week of its second season premiere in October 2020. That was spread across nine episodes, however, since Nielsen counts every installment of a series in its streaming metric.
Cobra Kai, whose fourth season premiered Dec. 31, dethroned The Witcher as the top series in Nielsen’s streaming rankings for the week of Dec. 27-Jan. 2. The 40 episodes of the Netflix show totaled 2.42 billion minutes of viewing time for the week. (That equates to an average audience of about 1.86 million, given that the full series spans more than 21 hours of viewing time.)
The Witcher (1.83 billion minutes) dropped to second place after two weeks at No. 1, slipping by a third from Christmas week. Emily in Paris (1.11 billion) improved a bit over its performance from the previous week and topping the billion-minute mark.
Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time (630 million minutes) held steady the week after its finale debuted — a rarity among streaming shows with weekly releases. It lost only 1 percent of its total viewing time from the previous week. Disney+’s Hawkeye (539 million minutes) also remained in the top 10 the week after its final episode, but in contrast to The Wheel of Time, it was down 42 percent from the prior week.
Nielsen’s streaming ratings cover viewing on TV sets only and don’t include minutes watched on computers or mobile devices. The ratings only measure U.S. audiences, not those in other countries, and currently only include Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and Prime Video.
Nielsen’s top streaming series for Dec. 27-Jan. 2 are below.
Original Series
1. Cobra Kai (Netflix), 2.42 billion minutes viewed
2. The Witcher (Netflix), 1.83 billion
3. Emily in Paris (Netflix), 1.11 billion
4. The Wheel of Time (Prime Video), 630 million
5. Hawkeye (Disney+), 539 million
6. Queer Eye (Netflix), 466 million
7. Lost in Space (Netflix), 452 million
8. The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+), 389 million
9. Stay Close (Netflix), 349 million
10. The Great British Baking Show (Netflix), 338 million
Acquired Series
1. Cocomelon (Netflix), 751 million minutes
2. NCIS (Netflix), 730 million
3. Criminal Minds (Netflix), 636 million
4. Seinfeld (Netflix), 561 million
5. Grey’s Anatomy (Netflix), 504 million
6. Supernatural (Netflix), 430 million
7. Heartland (Netflix), 413 million
8. Shameless (Netflix), 365 million
9. Dexter (Netflix), 335 million
10. Bluey (Disney+), 328 million
Source: Hollywood
