Loki Debuts on the Streaming Charts
Disney’s streaming services performed extraordinarily well overall last week, led by the debuts of Loki and Haunted Mansion.
Let’s talk about the latest set of Nielsen ratings.
Haunted Mansion Wins the Week
As a reminder, Nielsen doesn’t reveal its streaming ratings until a month after the fact.
Nielsen does this as a concession to the participating streaming services and possibly linear network channels, too.
So, we’re discussing the week of October 2nd through October 8th.
During that week, Elemental’s three-week reign as the most-watched streaming movie came to an end.
This news is far from disappointing to Disney, though. That’s because a different Disney film replaced Elemental at the top of the chart.
Haunted Mansion, which Disney inexplicably released in theaters in July rather than October, joined Disney+ during the October week in question.
While I’ll always feel strongly that Disney should have waited for a near-Halloween theatrical release for the project, here’s the rationale.
Disney hoped that Haunted Mansion would perform well during the summer box office campaign. Then, it’d become anchor Disney+ programming in the fall.
Obviously, the SAG-AFTRA strike put a crimp in those plans, with none of the stars of Haunted Mansion able to advertise the project before its release.
To Disney’s credit, it planned ahead with some Disneyland footage of the cast, but that wasn’t enough to save the film from financial disappointment.
Now, fans can watch a spooky holiday movie at during Halloween month.
People did just that, with Haunted Mansion earning 992 million viewing minutes.
This performance is quite solid and would win most weekends on the Nielsen Movies chart.
In fact, Elemental’s 621 million is often good enough to win, although it only finished in third for this week.
I also honestly don’t know what kind of staying power Haunted Mansion will have.
On the one hand, word-of-mouth remains middling. On the other, it’s still Halloween season for the next three weeks of Nielsen ratings.
To a larger point, Disney has claimed the top spot on the Movies chart for four straight weeks thanks to Elemental and now Haunted Mansion.
Loki Debuts
Here’s the biggest story of the week.
Disney+ had previously named Loki the most popular Marvel series on the service thus far.
In June 2021, Loki’s pilot debuted to 731 million viewing minutes during its first few days.
Season one aired on Wednesdays, which meant that its 731 million minutes reflects more than four days of viewing.
With Loki season two starting at 9 PM EST on Thursday, its first week was a bit truncated.
Still, Loki managed to claim sixth on the Nielsen Originals chart with an impressive 446 million minutes.
Once we account for the extra day, Loki’s viewing totals dropped about 30 percent with its season two numbers.
You can take a glass half-full or half-empty perspective with this number.
Yes, Loki season two has fallen a bit, but we also don’t have a pandemic trapping people inside, as was still the case in June 2021.
Conversely, Disney+ subscriber totals have increased by nearly 42 percent.
So, there are arguments on both sides regarding how impressive this performance is.
For its part, Disney has trumpeted Loki as having the second-best season premiere on Disney+ this year.
So, everybody sounds happy here. Loki is likely to grow with next week’s chart, as it’ll have an entire week on the charts, plus two new episodes.
Disney’s choice to air its series weekly rather than releasing them all at once is divisive among streaming fans.
This philosophy intentionally deflates the early viewing totals in exchange for a more sustained viewing audience over time.
Disney’s Other Popular Titles
Notably, Loki only charted third among Disney titles and sixth overall on the Originals list for the week.
Ahsoka claimed second with 575 million viewer minutes. This episode marked the season finale. So, fans can binge the whole thing now.
For this reason, Ahsoka will likely hang around the charts for another two or three weeks.
Similarly, Only Murders in the Building ended its exceptionally satisfying third season with an impressive 563 million minutes.
That program is also likely to stay on the charts for at least another week or two.
On Acquired, Bluey worked its usual magic, earning 701 million viewer minutes.
Like Moana, Bluey has a range that generally keeps it near the top 10 on the charts and sometimes near the top.
Amusingly, Moana didn’t make this week’s list, though. Instead, a different Disney release earned a spot at the bottom of the top ten on the Movies list.
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas started its annual October ascension with 245 million viewer minutes.
In case you missed the story, the film also recently returned to theaters, where it finished in the top five.
We could feasibly watch Jack Skellington hold a spot on the streaming charts at the same time as its recent box office triumph. We’ll know in a couple of weeks.
Overall, Disney+ managed a rare feat for any streaming service other than Netflix.
Three different programs on the streaming service finished in the overall Nielsen top ten for the week, which is quite impressive.
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