Now that “The Boys” wrapped up its five-season run on Prime Video, the streamer has several spinoffs on tap to continue its legacy. But is there enough audience interest to sustain the franchise? We looked into the ratings to find an answer.
One day before the series finale aired on May 20, Prime Video shared that “The Boys” Season 5 ranked as the show’s most-watched installment, and landed in the top 10 of the most-viewed seasons of any Prime Video original series, according to global viewing figures from Amazon. Season 5 reached 57 million viewers in its first 39 days, and gathered 69 million viewers across the whole series in that same window.
But figures from Nielsen’s streaming charts tell a different story, given they only account for U.S. viewing. During the Season 5 rollout, “The Boys” averaged 968 million minutes per episode in the U.S., a 19% decrease from the 1.2 billion minutes per episode averaged by the show as Season 4 was released, according to weekly viewing figures from Nielsen’s streaming charts. It’s worth noting that Season 4 debuted with the first three episodes before switching to a weekly drop, while Season 5 dropped two episodes for premiere ahead of a weekly release, extending its rollout by a week.
The viewership dropoff for the final season might reflect fan backlash surrounding the storylines which some found underwhelming — including a nod to Elon Musk and a climactic battle some fans felt was disappointingly anticlimactic. Midway through “The Boys” Season 5 rollout, Prime Video canceled its college-set spinoff series “Gen V” after diminishing viewership between Seasons 1 and 2 — suggesting fans won’t necessarily gravitate to any “Boys”-related content. While two other spinoffs are believed to be on the way, the poor reception to the main show’s ending raises questions about whether fans will check out future iterations of the franchise.
“The Boys” closed out its penultimate season with a series viewership high on Nielsen with 1.3 billion viewing minutes during the week of July 15, 2024 — a viewing milestone the series did not surpass with its final episodes. With the two-episode Season 5 premiere, “The Boys” tallied 899 million minutes during the week of April 6; and reached 1.05 billion viewing minutes with the debut of Episode 6.
Viewership ticked up with the series finale, with “The Boys” gathering 1.07 billion minutes on the week of May 18, its highest tally during Season 5’s run.
Despite that viewership decline in the U.S., “The Boys” Season 5 still reached the top of Nielsen’s overall streaming charts once — albeit during a slow scripted landscape across the board. For its first three weeks, “The Boys” was the No. 2 streaming program, behind HBO Max’s “The Pitt” and Disney kids favorite “Bluey,” but was the top streaming program for the week of April 27.
Its lead fell the following week amid the Netflix resurgence for NBC’s “La Brea,” but remained within the top four streaming programs for the rest of its run.
“The Boys” certainly rallied a bigger audience than spinoff “Gen V,” which was canceled in April after two seasons. The three-episode debut of Season 2 in September led the spinoff series to bring in its largest weekly total with 424 million minutes, landing at the bottom of Nielsen’s streaming originals list. It didn’t make too much ratings noise in the following weeks.
The cancellation shocked some fans, though the series faced its own difficulties following the unexpected death of cast member Chance Perdomo, which changed the trajectory of Season 2.
It’s a tricky place for “The Boys” to leave off. That said, the show’s universe will continue on with two additional spinoffs. Prequel “Vought Rising” is slated for a 2027 debut on Prime Video and “The Boys: Mexico” is in development, but the spinoff has not yet been greenlit to series.
Maybe those global viewers will be enough.
FIFA World Cup scores milestone ratings
The ratings wins for the FIFA World Cup keep coming, with June 18’s Mexico-South Korea match making history as the most-watched soccer match ever in Spanish-language television with 14 million viewers across Telemundo and Peacock, surpassing the previous record set by the Mexico-South Africa game the week prior.
The milestones were tallied on the English-language side as well, with June 19 ranking as the most-watched FIFA men’s World Cup day in English-language U.S. history. The U.S.-Australia match on Fox brought in 16.2 million viewers, marking the second-most watched FIFA men’s World Cup group stage telecast in English-language U.S. history.
U.S. Open hits it out of the park
On another side of the sports coin, the U.S. Open saw some ratings success this weekend as it became the second-most watched east coast U.S. Open since 2013 with an average viewership of 5.5 million for Sunday’s final round coverage on NBC and Peacock. Viewership was up 2% from last year’s final round, and the audience peaked at 9.3 million viewers on NBC and Peacock from 6:30-6:45 p.m. ET.
ICYMI:
- “CBS Mornings” faced ratings lows as the program drops 6% from its 2026 average as Bari Weiss continues to face turmoil at CBS News
- JD Vance’s appearance on “The View” became the most-watched episode in over a year
- Harlan Coben’s “I Will Find You” scored Netflix’s biggest TV launch of the year
- The White House-hosted “UFC Freedom 250” brought in the biggest audience Paramount+ has seen for a live event to date
- “Love Island USA” courted over 2 billion viewing minutes in its first two weeks on Peacock, rising 50% from its record-breaking Season 7 last year
