Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Deep dives into Nielsen and other data that provide insights into streaming.
Before we start, let’s admit it: our minds aren’t really on streaming ratings right now, are they? The tragic news in Ukraine will likely draw your focus away from entertainment news. I don’t blame you. I’m there too. Still, I’m going to write this week’s report, because the streaming world
Want a little secret? I have a ton of fun writing these weekly ratings reports. More fun than I should. Each week, I have little mysteries to solve and unpack. Eternals had a big number this week, but is it doing better than Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten
Instead of the usual weekly report, last week we gave you something much better: a run down of the winners and losers of 2021. In case you missed, I published a few pieces last week, including: – The Winners of 2021: TV – The Winners and Losers of 2021: Film
Looking back on 2021, it probably ended up “weirder” than 2020. In 2020, theaters shuttered due to the pandemic, so nothing happened after March, outside of Disney and Warner Bros. trying to release Tenet and Mulan. Last year, in contrast, Warner Bros tried to release all their films day-and-date on
What a difference a year makes. In 2020, when trying to write who “won the year”, I had to parse multiple data sources, plus Covid-19’s lockdowns made everything tougher to judge what truly did well and what folks happened to stream for a few weeks in March. In 2021, with
We continue with the “sweeps week” theme in this edition of the streaming ratings. As I mentioned last time, streaming was up the last week of the year. Wayyyy up. As such, so are all the ratings. Today we continue our streaming ratings report for the week starting 27-Dec-2022, this
The last week of the calendar year—the week after Christmas Day to be precise—is the “new sweeps” for TV. Why? Because lots of folks get new devices, be they iPads, iPhones, smart TVs or connectable updates for old TVs and turn them on. When they do, they download new apps,
In December, streaming felt a lot like yesterday’s titanic Buffalo Bills vs Kansas City Chiefs game. It started off slow, but then finished with a slew of big, big titles. Netflix released The Witcher and Emily in Paris, Paramount+ released 1883 (a Yellowstone spinoff), and Disney+ released The Book of
Yesterday, Netflix released their earnings report for 2021. Often, a Netflix earnings report isn’t good or bad, just more of the same. (I’ve written that article a few times.) Yesterday was different; it was a blood bath. Already down to $500 per share from its peak of $650 in November,
Entertainment is a hit-driven business, and that seems to be the question for the week: how many hits are the streamers launching? In film, it seems like a bunch. It TV? Not so much. We’re still catching up on all the ratings and data for the start of December. I’ll