Disney and Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ Dominates on Streaming Charts
Last month, Disney reported that Elemental had proven wildly popular on streaming.
Yesterday, we just found out how popular, as Elemental has dominated the Nielsen streaming charts.
In fact, Disney’s streaming services performed extraordinarily well overall.
Let’s talk about this week’s streaming ratings to learn how well.
About the Nielsen Ratings
Photo Credit: DisneyPlus.com
Remember Nielsen ratings? No? Then, you must be under 30!
For the longest time, television relied on Nielsen ratings to identify the popularity of various programs.
Shows with lofty Nielsen ratings earned multi-year renewals, while poor performers quickly found themselves canceled.
Photo: What’s on Disney Plus
Alas, the cord-cutting era put a crimp in Nielsen’s empire. The entertainment industry questioned the validity of the service.
Nielsen failed to update its tracking service to the disruption caused by DVRs and, later, streaming services.
Consumers watched programming in new ways, ones that Nielsen failed to measure.
Photo: Comicbook.com
Early in the pandemic, Nielsen finally adopted new measures for evaluating streaming services.
My podcast, Streaming into the Void, devotes an entire weekly segment to evaluating these streaming ratings.
What I can tell you after doing this for a few years is that Nielsen’s new method has proven *ahem* imperfect.
Photo: Disney Plus
Nielsen only tracks specific kinds of media consumption, mostly television viewing.
So, those of you who watch streaming programs on phones and tablets don’t even count. And yes, that’s a glaring oversight.
Photo: Disney
For this reason, whenever we discuss Nielsen streaming ratings, the one thing you should keep in mind is that the numbers are always much higher.
You can think of it as my describing Jeff Bezos’ net worth by mentioning only one of his bank accounts. It’s not an accurate total, and we know it.
Photo: amplitude.com
Still, Nielsen streaming ratings are the best that we’ve got.
I’m saying all this because I’ll start covering Nielsen streaming ratings weekly, at least when Disney has qualifying programming.
This week’s article will probably be a bit more detailed than most, as the Nielsen streaming ratings story of the week is often just “Wow, a lot of people watch Bluey!”
Elemental Dominates
As MickeyBlog reported a month ago, Elemental performed extraordinarily well during its first few days of streaming.
Disney+ added Elemental on September 13th. The latest Nielsen streaming ratings cover the week of September 11th-17th.
That brings me to an essential point. Elemental was only available for five of the seven days for this week. As such, its performance is that much better.
Photo: Disney/Pixar
Elemental proved to be THE most popular movie on streaming during that week, with Nielsen tracking a whopping 1.726 billion minutes of Elemental viewing.
Yes, Nielsen ranks streaming in terms of viewing minutes.
Photo: Disney/Pixar
With Elemental, that’s the equivalent of 18.2 million people watching the whole film. And that’s a LOT!
In fact, the second-most watched streaming movie last week, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, claimed 588 million minutes of viewing.
Photo: Disney/Pixar
Elemental nearly tripled The Little Mermaid!!! Since they’re both Disney+ titles, the specific details don’t really matter, though.
Instead, the headline is that Disney claimed the two spots on the list.
Even more impressively, those two films earned more streaming views than the rest of the top ten combined!
Image: Disney
When Disney releases films in theaters, it plans this sort of release strategy.
First, the movie earns theatrical box office. Then, Disney sells the title on services like iTunes, Vudu, and Amazon Instant Video.
Image: Disney
Afterward, Disney releases the film on one of its streaming services, typically Disney+, thereby encouraging people to subscribe.
During this particular week, Elemental and The Little Mermaid performed so well that it’s easy to forget their uphill struggles at the box office.
Other Disney Releases of Note
Nielsen divides titles into three distinct categories: Movies, Original Programs, and Acquired Programs.
When things are going well for Disney, it earns placement on all three lists. And that’s what happened during the week in question!
In fact, Disney performed VERY well in the Original Programs category.
Photo: Lucasfilm
Ahsoka has been a staple on the Nielsen charts since its debut. During its fifth week of release, Ahsoka earned 577 million viewing minutes.
While the count technically includes all episodes to date, most of the viewing likely came from the fifth episode.
Photo: Lucasfilm
Typically, the Disney+ trend is that shows debut well and then more or less flatline in the same number range until the final episode airs.
During that week, the series may gain a bump as viewers binge-watch to catch up.
Speaking of which, Only Murders in the Building on Hulu has also consistently placed in the top ten during its run.
For this week in September, the Hulu+ series claimed 456 million minutes of viewing, which is solid for this series.
These ratings are (mostly) for the seventh episode of season three, CoBro.
Image: Futurama
The surprise of the fall, at least from Disney’s perspective, is how well Futurama has performed in the Nielsen streaming ratings.
This inexpensive adult animated series, which happens to be my favorite show ever, finished in ninth place with 349 million viewer minutes.
For a show that costs a fractional amount compared to Ahsoka and Only Murders in the Building, this is an exemplary performance. But it’s no Bluey.
Final Thoughts
Image: Nielsen
Parents, you know the deal here, and it’s not just you. Every child in America appears transfixed by the Australian series, Bluey.
This series pretty much always appears on the Nielsen Acquired Program list, and it’s usually in the top three.
Photo: Disney+
For the week in question, Bluey claimed 835 million viewer minutes, which is about the norm for the show.
Every generation traces its upbringing to a few seminal child-friendly programs.
For children of the past decade, the two shows in question are irrefutably Cocomelon and Bluey.
Photo: TheWrap.com
If Disney purchases Candle Media from former Bob Iger lieutenants Kevin Mayer and Thomas O. Staggs, Cocomelon will explain the why of it.
Mayer and Staggs run Candle Media, which purchased Cocomelon a while ago.
In that way, they upheld their Disney roots by snagging family-friendly programming.
At the moment, Bluey is more popular, as Cocomelon claimed 666 million viewer minutes for the week.
Those numbers fluctuate depending on which series has released new episodes more recently.
Still, you can tell from this data just how well Disney’s streaming programming is doing.
Bluey asks Aunt Trixie to take off Muffin’s cone while Bingo and Mum watch on. (Credit: Disney Channel)
In fact, I didn’t even mention another Disney+ movie that charted.
Moana frequently makes the list and did for the week in question. It earned 219 million viewer minutes, which is about average for the beloved film.
Photo: Disney
Disney’s streaming services may not be making any money yet, but they’re definitely claiming lots of views while building strong viewer loyalty.
Photo: MickeyBlog
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