The epic numbers showdown between HBO’s “House of the Dragon” and Prime Video’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is finally at an end.
In its finale week of Oct. 17-23, the “Game of Thrones” spinoff topped 1 billion viewing minutes, per the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 chart. Comparatively, “Rings of Power” scored 1.1 billion viewing minutes during its finale window, which took place the week prior on Oct. 10 through 16.
“House of the Dragon” has previously topped the billion-minute mark twice, and its numbers — 38% driven by the 18-34 demo — following the release of Episode 10 landed the genre show atop the acquired streaming titles list and at No. 3 overall, behind Netflix’s “The School for Good and Evil” and “The Watcher.” Following the release of its finale, “Rings of Power” dropped to 570 million viewing minutes, falling off of the overall list but still landing at No. 5 on the originals chart.
After its release, HBO and Nielsen released their initial viewership numbers across both linear and digital viewing platforms). Per first party and Nielsen data, the finale racked up 9.3 million viewers on that Sunday night (Oct. 23) across all platforms, making it the biggest conclusion night for an HBO series since “Game of Thrones” ended in 2019. The feat was even more impressive considering the fact that the finale leaked online to torrent sites days before it aired.
When comparing viewership for “HOTD” and “Rings of Power,” keep in mind that Nielsen’s streaming data does not take into consideration HBO’s linear viewing numbers, nor does it completely capture the total viewing that likely took place on streaming for Episode 10, given the Sunday release schedule and Nielsen’s cut off on that day. By contrast, “Rings of Power” is a streaming original, where all viewing data comes from Prime Video (which does not independently release figures), in addition to the fact that new episodes drop on Thursdays, allowing for an extended viewing window before the conclusion of a particular Nielsen Streaming week.
As mentioned previously, other standout programs during the week of Oct. 17-23 included “The Watcher,” another Ryan Murphy title that’s been dominating the streaming world. The true-crime series notched 2.6 billion minutes viewed, up 10% over an already impressive debut week. The figures seemed to indicate that viewers pivoted away from Murphy’s previous title, as “Dahmer” slipped to 599 million viewing minutes after four consecutive weeks of receiving more than 1 billion minutes.
Also on Netflix, “The School for Good and Evil” made its debut on the chart at more than 1 billion minutes this week, doing so with another Wednesday release. The book-to-film adaptation attracted a younger audience, with 12% falling into the 2-11 year old category. Per the streamer’s own numbers, the fantasy epic easily topped the English Film list with 78.83 million hours notched in its debut week.
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