Disney Struggles in the Mid-December Ratings
After experiencing success earlier in December, Disney+ struggled mightily during the early Christmas holiday season.
I’ll explain as we examine the Nielsen Streaming ratings for the week of December 11th through December 17th.
Disney+ Struggles
For the first time in ages, Disney+ and Hulu faced a shutout in the category of Original programming.
That’s what Nielsen describes streaming series airing for the first time.
In recent months, Disney+ and Hulu had performed extraordinarily well thanks to programs like Loki and The Bear.
However, I warned you that as those shows concluded their current seasons, Disney’s streaming services would suffer a lull.
Recently, The Santa Clauses on Disney+ had shown some promise, but it failed to place in the top ten for the week in question.
Overall, Netflix claimed nine of the top ten spots on the Originals chart, led by The Crown, Obliterated, and My Life with the Walter Boys.
However, Reacher won the week for Amazon Prime Video.
The news isn’t all bleak for Disney, though. In fact, hope is just around the corner.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians debuted on December 19th, two days after this week’s charts ended.
So, that series appears certain to chart next week…and will probably place in the top three.
Bluey and the Christmas Movies
Overall, Disney+ and Hulu claimed three entries on Nielsen’s streaming ratings for the week.
Two of them occurred in the Movies category, while the other came on the Acquired list.
If you’ve read other recent ratings articles, you can probably guess the two holiday films.
Yup, the correct answers are Home Alone on Disney+ and Elf on Hulu…which you can also watch on Disney+, presuming you have the Disney Bundle.
For the mid-December week, Home Alone claimed 455 million viewer minutes, which means people watched it about 4.5 million times.
For Elf, the viewer minutes were similar at 435 million. However, since the film is shorter, more people watched it.
I’d estimate that 4.8 million people watched Elf during the week in question.
Since Hulu shares Elf’s streaming rights with Max, not all those viewings counted for Disney, though.
Finally, as usual, Bluey managed 818 million viewer minutes.
In the four years I’ve tracked streaming ratings, Bluey is probably the most reliable performer on the charts.
Criminal Minds and The Office had behaved similarly, but their messy streaming rights have sunk them lately.
Still, while this week wasn’t great for Disney, things should get better next week.
In addition to Percy Jackson, two or three episodes of What If…? will have been released.
That’s possibly enough to make the charts. We’ll see…
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