“Monster: The Ed Gein Story” made a splashier debut than “The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” in its first two weeks on Netflix, but its third week of viewership suggests that this latest season of the “Monster” franchise might fade out more quickly than Season 2.
After “The Ed Gein Story” dropped on Friday, Oct. 3, the season tallied 12.2 million views in just three days, scoring a bigger weekend debut than the 12.3 million viewers that tuned in during the first four days of “The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” which dropped on a Thursday last September. Notably, “The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” debuted as Netflix’s No. 1 most-watched English-language TV series of the week, while “The Ed Gein Story” was the second title on the top 10 list, and was outpaced by “Wayward,” which scored 14.1 million views in its second week on the streamer.
In its second week (and first full week of viewership), “The Ed Gein Story” saw a 69.7% uptick from its opening weekend to reach 20.7 million views, also outpacing “Menendez,” which scored 19.5 million views in its comparable second week, marking a similar 58.5% rise from its opening weekend viewership. Both titles were Netflix’s top TV series during the second week.
By Week 3, however, “Ed Gein” saw its audience cut in half to reach 9.5 million views, just barely holding onto the top spot on the TV list as the military drama “Boots” came in a close second place with 9.4 million views. While “Menendez” was similarly outpaced by the debut of another buzzy release — “Nobody Wants This” — in its third week, it only dropped 32.8% from its Week 2 peak to reach 13.1 million views.
While viewership data is not yet available beyond the third week of “Ed Gein’s” release, if the Week 3 viewership is any indication, the newest “Monster” installment from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan might have less staying power than “Menendez,” which makes sense considering how the release of “The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” collided with the real-life Menendez brothers attempting to get parole for their prison sentences — an effort that gathered national attention following the release of the Netflix series.
Though “Menendez” drew criticism from the brothers themselves, who initially called the show “inaccurate” and “dishonest,” the siblings eventually applauded the show for opening people’s eyes to their case, which eventually led to movements for the case in court. The brothers were resentenced to 50 years to life in August 2025, which made them eligible for parole immediately, though both brothers were ultimately denied parole.
The attention surrounding the case and the legal movements sparked by the series inevitably boosted more chatter than that of a serial killer who has been diseased for decades.
Still, “Menendez” saw a bigger decline by its fourth week on Netflix as it dropped to around what “Ed Gein” saw in its third week with 8.7 million views in Week 4, and then to 5.3 million views in its fifth week. Overall, “Menendez” stayed in Netflix’s top 10 TV list for seven weeks.
Both are following the big footsteps of the original season. The first installment of “Monster,” which focused on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, drew an unprecedented amount of viewership and attention when it first premiered in September 2022 as backlash flooded in from victims’ family and beyond. “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” stands as the only “Monster” installment to make it into Netflix’s top 10 most popular TV series with a whopping 115.6 million views to date.
With “Dahmer” premiering before Netflix switched its viewership metric from hours viewed to views (hours viewed divided by runtime), it’s difficult to compare initial viewership to subsequent seasons due to differing episode count, and therefore hours viewed (“Dahmer” had 10 episodes, while “Menendez” had nine and “Ed Gein” has just eight). That said, “Dahmer” debuted to 196.2 million hours viewed and 299.84 hours viewed in first two weeks, respectively, while “Ed Gein” debuted to 90.6 million hours and 154.2 million hours viewed with two less episodes.
As for whether “Ed Gein” can get anywhere close to the consistent chatter for “Dahmer” and “Menendez,” only time will tell.
“Sherri” sees double-digit agains among women in season’s second week | Exclusive
Lionsgate’s Debmar-Mercury-produced talk series saw a 14% boost among women 25-54 in the second week of its new season, securing a 0.24 rating in the demo, TheWrap can reveal exclusively. “Sherri” was the No. 3 most-watched talk show of the week in the key demo among women, behind “Live with Kelly and Mark” and “The Drew Barrymore Show” and outpacing “The Kelly Clarkson Show” in its debut week, according to the Nielsen national syndication rankings for week of Sept. 29.
“Sherri” also saw a slight uptick among households for the week, averaging a 0.53 rating and tying with “Tamron Hall,” which saw a 10% decline from the previous week.
“World News Tonight with David Muir” scores biggest audience in 11 weeks
The ABC News show closed out the heavy news week with 7.7 million total viewers, 927,000 adults 25-54 and 631,000 adults 18-49 during the week of Oct. 13, based on live-plus-same-day big data plus panel Nielsen data. Not only did “World News Tonight” see gains from the previous week across the board as total viewers saw a 6% increase, adults 25-54 saw a 16% uptick and adults 18-49 saw an increase, the show also scored its biggest audience in 11 weeks and hit a season-high across the board.
Steelers-Bengals game leads Prime Video to major viewership gains
Thursday’s Steelers-Bengals game averaged 15.2 million viewers on Prime Video, marking an impressive 55% uptick from last season’s comparable game, the Broncos-Saints game, which scored 9.8 million viewers on Oct. 17, 2024. 10/17/2024), marking the largest year-over-year increase of the season. Thursday’s game peaked with 16.92 million viewers between 9:30 and 9:44 p.m. ET.
With the gains, Thursday Night Football is averaging 15.63 million viewers, marking the best season thus far for Prime Video, with the six-week average up 17% over last year’s season-to-date average.
