Taylor Swift Dominates on Streaming Charts
The Nielsen streaming ratings are in for the week, and we’ve once again confirmed that people love Taylor Swift.
Arguably the world’s most popular musician, Swift sold her concert film, The Eras Tour, to Disney+ for $75 million.
Disney already told us this decision proved brilliant, but now we have a second confirmation.
Yes, Taylor Swift has dominated the streaming charts. Let’s talk specifics.
It’s Taylor Swift’s World
Timing is everything in pop culture, and Taylor Swift just had one of the hottest runs in the history of the business.That’s not hyperbole, either. Her current tour has become the first in history to earn $1 billion.
As Rolling Stone points out, The Eras Tour earned more than the second and third most successful tours…combined.
That fact alone tells the story, but it’s only a fraction of what has happened over the past year.
During the Hollywood strikes, Swift stood up for the movie industry by releasing her film via an unconventional method.
Swift ignored conventional distributors and sold The Eras Tour directly through AMC Theatres.
In the process, Variety argues that Swift “saved the fall movie season.”
Somewhere along the way, the musician’s love life turned into onscreen drama as her whirlwind romance with Travis Kelce heated up.
The All-Pro tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs was already the defending Super Bowl champion and a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Non-football fans didn’t know he was, but they started watching the NFL after Swift showed up at Chiefs games.
Not coincidentally, the NFL’s television ratings soared, culminating in a Super Bowl feat for the ages.
In an era of constantly declining television ratings – because who watches linear television? – the Super Bowl proved the exception.
Estimates suggest that 123.4 million viewers watched what critics jokingly called the Swift Bowl.
This curiosity caused Super Bowl LVIII to become the most-viewed television program SINCE THE MOON LANDING!!!
Soon afterward, Disney announced its deal for The Eras Tour, and now we know the results.
And We’re All Just Living in It
As a reminder, Nielsen delays the publication of its streaming ratings for four weeks for reasons passing understanding.
So, we’re discussing the streaming ratings for the week of March 11th-17th, 2024.
Importantly, The Eras Tour didn’t debut on Disney+ until March 14th.
You can multiply these ratings to get an idea of how The Eras Tour would have performed over a full week.
From March 14th through the 17th, The Eras Tour claimed 677 million viewer minutes, making it the eighth-most-watched streaming program.
The film finished second on the Movie chart for the week, as it was never gonna beat the top film.
Netflix released Damsel the same week. The Millie Bobby Brown film is one Netflix’s biggest titles of 2024.
Given Netflix’s scale advantage, even Taylor Swift couldn’t cover that gap, although it would have been close.
Damsel managed 1.542 billion viewer minutes. A full week of The Eras Tour would have been the equivalent of 1.354 billion.
Taylor Swift vs. Netflix is the biggest fight since Thanos took on The Avengers.
Disney had previously revealed its internal numbers for The Eras Tour, stating that fans watched the film 4.6 million times in its first three days.
Netflix’s streaming numbers are estimates and often imperfect, but this week’s data aligns with Disney’s previous reveal.
Disney Streaming Hits Non-Swift Edition
Due to the calendar configuration, The Eras Tour wasn’t Disney’s biggest streaming hit this week.
Yes, our friend Bluey took that title instead. For the week in question, the Australian pupper led the Acquired charts.
Bluey gained another 1.062 billion viewer minutes for the week, which is pretty much its baseline lately.
ABC’s long-running Grey’s Anatomy also charted high with 830 million viewer minutes.
Of course, most of those views came from Netflix, not Hulu.
Similarly, Criminal Minds finished ninth on Acquired with 493 million, but some of that came from Paramount+ viewings.
On the Originals chart, Hulu’s Shogun grew again. For this particular week, the show claimed 408 million viewer minutes. It’s a hit.
Speaking of Hulu, Emma Stone’s Poor Things, the awards season darling, garnered 376 million viewer minutes.
Based on run-time, that number suggests 2.8 million views of the movie on Hulu.
The real question is whether Poor Things does something that few Disney films from the second half of 2023 managed.
Will Poor Things show some staying power on the charts? That would be…unusual for a first-run title on Hulu.
Finally, I should mention that Moana also appeared on the Movies chart. The beloved film managed 324 million viewer minutes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that number doubled by the time Moana 2 enters theaters in November.
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Feature Photo: Disney+