Percy Jackson and the Olympians Finishes Strong
Percy Jackson and the Olympians finished strong, as its final episode performed well on the Nielsen streaming ratings.
Let’s talk about the Disney+ and Hulu programs that fans are watching the most.
Percy Jackson Impresses
The long-respected ratings service Nielsen has taken an odd approach to streaming ratings.
Due to the methodology that Nielsen employs to track performance, it delays ratings announcements.
Whereas we learn television ratings the following day, streaming data takes several weeks.
For example, on Leap Day, Nielsen released the streaming ratings for January 29th through February 4th.
You probably don’t know/recall this, but the season finale of Percy Jackson aired on January 30th, 2024.
So, we’re talking about the week when fans rushed to catch up with the reason.
As such, I’d hoped that Percy Jackson would experience more growth with its streaming ratings.
The show has vastly surpassed even Disney’s loftiest pre-release expectations, but as a Disney fan, I’m always hoping for more.
A month ago, Percy Jackson and the Olympians claimed multiple weeks of 600+ million viewer minutes.
During the week that the show’s season finale aired, Percy Jackson managed another 575 million viewer minutes.
That’s not the bump I’d expected/predicted, but it is reflective of the fact that fans stayed with the show the entire season.
Often, we’ll witness a falloff as viewers decide that a streaming series isn’t worth their time.
In Percy Jackson’s case, the ratings remained fairly static with every new episode.
That’s a win for Disney, as the series started at a higher level than anyone expected.
While more storied content like Marvel’s What If…? and Echo came and went, Percy Jackson stayed strong the entire time.
Now, the question becomes whether the show can remain on the charts for another week or two.
Disney+ needs something sticky because its February lineup of original programming was a bit lacking.
Fans got new episodes of The Bad Batch and then Iwájú at the end of the month.
Is 2024 the Year of Bluey?
The song remains the same on Nielsen’s Acquired chart as well as its Overall Top Ten.
Bluey has proven itself an absolute juggernaut, which explains why it’ll air its longest episode ever in a few weeks.
Disney’s most popular program in 2023 hasn’t slowed down any in 2024.
For the week in question, Bluey claimed another 1.15 billion viewer minutes.
That total was good enough for second place on the Acquired list behind Young Sheldon.
Overall, Bluey finished third for the week across streaming. Only Young Sheldon and Netflix’s Griselda surpassed it.
Here’s the scary thought about Bluey’s popularity. It may be ascending!
In calendar 2023, Nielsen tracked 43.9 billion viewer minutes for Bluey, a total surpassed by only Suits with 57.7 billion.
Over the past three weeks, Bluey has claimed four billion minutes watched. Over a full year, that paces to 69.3 billion (!!!) minutes.
I’m not saying this will happen, as peaks and valleys are natural with media consumption.
My point is more that the Bluey phenomenon is trending upward, not downward, and that’s stunning.
Disney’s Other Streaming Hits
Overall, Disney’s streaming content is currently in a lull.
The delays from the Hollywood strikes are starting to catch up with Hulu and Disney+, with programmers stretching out the hits.
In a few days, Disney will fill the void with Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version), which I’m told is a concert film of some sort.
Disney paid $75 million to corner the market on screaming fans, and this movie’s success appears assured.
If not for this concert, I’d have concerns about “churn” impacting Disney+ and Netflix.
That’s the industry/business term for subscribers canceling a service.
Typically, churn occurs when a subscriber believes that they’ve watched everything they want on a particular service.
With the end of Percy Jackson, Disney’s top content at the moment is animated.
We’ve got Star Wars: The Bad Batch right now and X-Men: ’97 coming soon.
In the interim, the other popular shows on Disney+ and Hulu are This Is Us, Criminal Minds, and Elemental.
For the last week of January, This Is Us claimed 682 million viewer minutes, while Criminal Minds managed 611 million.
As a reminder, the criminal procedural also streams on Paramount Plus as part of a joint licensing agreement.
So, not all of those views occurred on Hulu. In fact, the split was probably just 60/40.
Finally, Elemental hung in there for another week. The beloved Pixar film gained another 240 million viewer minutes.
Over the past calendar year, no film was misjudged as prematurely and incorrectly as Elemental. Disney fans adore it.
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