If you love nothing more than prequel shows to fantasy juggernauts, then you’re in luck. Right now, HBO and Amazon are duking it out. The former has House of the Dragon, which brings viewers back to the world of Game of Thrones. The latter has The Rings of Power, set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (though its brass is insisting it’s no prequel). In the lead-up to their premieres, there was much anxiety over whether people would tune in, much less enjoy them. Then Dragon scored ratings so high they all but crashed HBO Max. Now Amazon is claiming a ton of people also fired up the one about elves and orcs.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon is claiming that on its first day of release, starting Thursday night, The Rings of Power was watched by 25 million people worldwide — the largest audience they’ve ever received. It’s the first time the company has released stats about their streamer, which — as with Netflix, who only reports on viewership when it’s allegedly huge — makes it all a bit suspect. The news was short on details, as THR reports:
As for context, there’s little to go on: Prime Video reps declined to say whether that’s an average viewership worldwide on day one, the number of people who watched at least a few minutes of the series, or something else. Nor is there any indication of how much bigger The Rings of Power was than the previous record holder on Prime Video (or what that show was).
THR also pointed out that the claim might not be quite as impressive as it sounds:
Prime Video says the series launched in some 240 territories worldwide. Dividing 25 million by that number would average out to a little more than 104,000 viewers per territory (though certainly significantly higher than that in more populous countries). A rosier spin would be to note that Amazon has about 200 million Prime members worldwide who have access to Prime Video streaming. That would mean one in eight Prime members checked out The Rings of Power on its first day.
Of course, the real test will come when Amazon drops more episodes of their super pricey new Tolkien show. Perhaps it will wind up like House of the Dragon, which had a killer debut and an even more-watched second episode, suggesting that its success was no fluke.
(Via THR)
