People Watch Disney More Than Anything Else
Disney’s streaming services dominated the news during an eventful time.
Hulu and Disney+ garnered headlines for unexpected developments like the Shogun renewal and Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debut.
Photo: Disney+
Meanwhile, the ratings charts underscored the drawing power of Bluey, which had an excellent week and a funny related story.
Let’s talk about Disney’s 2024 streaming service ascension.
All the Good News
Photographer: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Recently, Nielsen, the company known for its television and, more recently, streaming charts introduced “a new insight.”
Called The Media Distributor Gauge, Nielsen indicates that this system is “a first of its kind, cross-platform view of total TV consumption across broadcast, cable and streaming, aggregated and ranked by media company.”
Photo: Forbes
Nielsen already offers a similar offering known as The Gauge, which evaluates how viewers consume media, especially digitally.
On The Gauge, Disney services finish fifth and sixth with Hulu earning 3.1 percent and 1.8 percent of all viewership, respectively.
Photo: Getty Images/Ringer illustration
That combined total of 4.9 percent would finish behind only YouTube and Netflix in terms of streaming consumption.
However, as we all know, that’s only a limited part of Disney’s overall reach.
Photo: Newsweek
The Media Distributor Gauge confirms this fact and Disney’s overall media dominance.
According to this new metric, Disney claims 11.5 percent of all aggregated “total TV usage” as ranked by media company.
Photo: English Jargon
That places Disney well ahead of YouTube (9.6 percent), followed by NBCUniversal (8.9 percent), Paramount (8.8 percent), and Warner Bros. Discovery (8.1 percent).
In other words, Disney has a bigger lead over second-place YouTube than YouTube has over fifth-place Warner Bros. Discovery.
Photo: simplemost.com
Only 14 total companies claimed at least one percent viewership on this metric.
Disney’s total matches the bottom six (!) on this list, a group that includes AMC Networks, Hallmark, A&E Network, Weigel Broadcasting Co., Scripps, and Amazon Prime Video.
Friends, anyone who tells you that Disney is losing popularity is either ill-informed or lying. The data is clear here.
Bluey Ascendant
Photo: Bluey.tv
On April 14th, 2024, Bluey released what was purportedly its final episode.
On April 21st, 2024, Bluey released a surprise episode that included a flash forward.
Photo: Bluey.tv
Later, we learned that more Bluey minisodes will arrive this summer. So, the Bluey phenomenon isn’t going away anytime soon.
I’ll also cover a hilarious story in Disney Headlines this week involving this debacle.
Photo: Disney
Long story short: if you promise a Bluey event, you better have Bluey and not some dude in a cheap Halloween costume.
Nobody’s settling for less these days, and Bluey Fever has reached an all-time high pitch.
Photo: Bluey
We learned that with the ratings, which conveniently cover the week of April 15th through April 21st.
That’s the day after “The Sign” first aired and the first day for the surprise follow-up episode, aptly named “Surprise!”
Disney+
With that much excitement happening during the week, Bluey viewership soared to 1.444 billion minutes watched.
Remarkably, that total wasn’t good enough to top the week, as Amazon’s Fallout bested it with 2.618 billion minutes.
Then again, Fallout added nearly 500 minutes of content. Bluey’s total was less than 30 minutes.
That stat alone underscores the explosive demand for Bluey.
Photo: Disney+
There’s just never enough of it to satisfy the show’s diehard fans.
The Hulu Dominance
In case you haven’t heard, Shogun will create two more seasons, which is…two more than anybody expected.
Hulu has chosen that path because the show’s first season, the only intended one, exceeded all reasonable expectations.
Photo: IMDB
For the third week of April, Shogun earned another 418 million viewer minutes, making it the fourth-most popular Original streaming program.
To a larger point, Shogun still has its series *ahem* season finale in next week’s ratings.
Photo: IMDB
I’d expect the series to chart for at least two more weeks.
And I’m kicking myself for not bingeing it during some recent downtime.
Photo: IMDB
Meanwhile, the Acquired chart has become Hulu’s domain. Half the programs listed this week are available on Hulu.
The most popular of them is Grey’s Anatomy, the eternal series that claimed another 1.111 billion minutes.
Family Guy
Finishing behind the medical show is…another medical show, The Resident. That show scored another 832 million viewer minutes.
Family Guy, a Hulu exclusive, snagged 758 million minutes, while Criminal Minds, a shared series, managed 661 million minutes.
Criminal Minds
Also, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit performed well with 611 million minutes.
Overall, these Hulu series combined for just under four billion minutes of viewing, aligning with the other Nielsen data we discussed.
Photo: Disney
On the Movies chart, Wish has demonstrated some modest staying power with 388 million minutes.
Realistically, the November release isn’t showing the same staying power as Elemental, though.
Photo: Disney
Finally, Moana claimed another 238 million viewer minutes. Not coincidentally, Disney’s going all-in on Moana. And they should.
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