Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Deep dives into Nielsen and other data that provide insights into streaming.
Due to the long Thanksgiving weekend, I didn’t publish a streaming ratings report on 25-November. But that meant analyzing an extra week’s worth of ratings data and assembling a double issue and, of course, it took me working through the weekend to get it finished. (Fingers crossed, we’re back on
This week is a “double” issue since I (finally) took a pre-planned vacation two weeks ago. That means we have two weeks worth of streaming data to cover. And it’s good we can take this time to cover the ratings, because it’s not like there’s been any other major entertainment
This week was a bit light on new shows on the Nielsen charts. There was the usual volume of new releases, but the top ten lists were dominated by the genre fare we’ve been writing about since August. This is a testament to how big those shows really were. Meanwhile,
When you try to collect and analyze all the streaming titles each week, you come across some weird TV premieres, like… – Panhandle on…Spectrum. (Even though they stopped making originals…) – Yara Shahidi’s Day Off on…Facebook Watch. (A video service that somehow still exists?) The best part about that latter
I could see some folks pushing back against including Dahmer – Monster in my “Hot August Genre” wars series. First, it’s not August anymore. Second, is this show really “genre”? Hell yeah! (And yes, technically Netflix titled this miniseries “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”. I’ll refer to it
Friend of the website Kasey Moore, of What’s on Netflix fame, on Twitter encouraged anyone who wrote “House of the Dragon vs. Rings of Power” comparisons to add Dahmer to their analysis. Need to start including DAHMER in the LOTR vs HOTD articles I think! https://t.co/uwGa6CqpJ7 — Kasey Moore (@kasey__moore)
I’m a pinch jealous of Sonny Bunch’s take from a few week’s back. His headline says it all: First, great Star Wars reference. Second, he’s absolutely right that Amazon has secured a slight edge in the streaming wars by adding a key piece to Prime Video: sports. In today’s report,
I usually don’t read anything about Nielsen’s streaming ratings before I write the Streaming Ratings Report each week. (In their press releases, Nielsen usually includes some insights to the data.) My goal is to find my insights/stories/narratives before I see what’s dominating the coverage. But this week, I couldn’t help
What’s the old cliche? If you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life? Well, then I’m barely doing work here. I love writing these streaming ratings reports. There’s something about pulling together lots of data and finding insights that brings me joy. And if you had
Today’s battle is the fight we’ve been waiting for since 2017. Two of the most expensive shows of all time from two of the biggest franchises of all time squaring off…and debuting within two weeks of each other! Lord of the Rings versus Game of Thrones. The Rings of Power