Netflix’s “Squid Game” continues to get the green light from U.S. viewers even two months after its premiere. The South Korean hit remained the most in-demand new TV show for Nov. 6-12, with effectively the same level of demand as the previous week — 34.2 times the average demand for a show that debuted in the last 100 days on a broadcast, cable or streaming network.
Meanwhile, demand for Syfy’s “Chucky” is not holding up as well, down 10.9% from last week — a troubling sign for a series that’s scheduled to conclude on November 23. Demand for horror content tends to peak around Halloween and quickly taper off as the holiday season approaches. Scheduling the finale to coincide with Halloween, as Epix’s “Chapelwaite” did, might have boosted demand for the series to end on a high note.
Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” held onto the third spot, with 25.5 times the average series demand last week despite the fact that the finale dropped on October 19. This is another great example of a show with long-lasting demand.
It is interesting to compare “Only Murders in the Building” with the other Hulu original that had a successful premiere around the same time: “Nine Perfect Strangers.” Both were among the 10 most in-demand premieres in the U.S. in the third quarter.
But while “Nine Perfect Strangers” had higher demand in its first 30 days, Nicole Kidman-led drama saw a larger spike in demand when it premiered and then plateaued. Using suspense and cliffhangers, “Only Murders in the Building” continued to grow in demand throughout its season, culminating with a peak for its first-season finale. Last week, the mystery starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez had almost twice as much demand as “Nine Perfect Strangers.” Building to a high-demand finale helps to increase the longevity of a show.
Peacock’s latest original, “The Lost Symbol,” managed to break into the top 10 of in-demand new TV shows. While NBCUniversal’s fledgling streaming service has seen respectable demand for previous original series like “Girls5eva” and “Rutherford Falls,” Peacock has mostly struggled to gain traction with its new streaming shows. But it seems to have found one key to unlocking audience demand for its originals by adapting Dan Brown’s popular puzzle-mystery books for the small screen (this time with Ashley Zukerman replacing “The Da Vinci Code” star Tom Hanks as Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon).
