Amazon Prime Video’s Rings of Power is easily its most ambitious project, possibly the biggest in all of streaming. With a billion-dollar budget, this Lord of the Rings series is now in its second season. From the start, reports said the show had a five-year plan already in place.
Over time, it became clear that the five-season plan wasn’t set in stone. Season 2 got approved, but third-party data shows a big drop in the number of people watching.
The numbers are really bad. Luminate, the company tracking viewership, reports that Season 2 started off with fewer viewers than Netflix’s Worst Ex Ever True Crime series. According to Variety, here’s the detail:
Advertisement - Rings of Power Season 1 premiered over Labor Day with two episodes, lasting 132 minutes total. It reached 1.2 billion minutes watched in the first four days.
- Rings of Power Season 2 premiered with three episodes, totaling 204 minutes. In the first four days, it reached 553.5 million minutes watched.
Viewership dropped by more than half, even with an extra episode in Season 2. Other companies, like Samba, show similar numbers—Season 1 had 1.8 million households watching, while Season 2 only had 900,000. Although Amazon doesn’t share exact data, their Top 10 list shows Rings of Power currently ranked above The Boys, which finished its fourth season back in mid-July.
This drop is unusual. Even though you might not expect Rings of Power to get the same huge boost as Game of Thrones, it’s still surprising. For example, House of the Dragon also saw a drop in viewers this year, but it was only about 15%.
Critics are uncertain if Amazon will stick to its plan for five seasons of Rings of Power. The first season was the biggest premiere in Prime Video history, but if the viewership numbers keep dropping, it might not make sense to continue for another three years.
Amazon Prime Video has plenty of successful shows. The Boys and its spin-off Gen V are popular, and Reacher is a big hit, performing well on the charts. Fallout also started strong and received several Emmy nominations. However, Rings of Power is quickly losing interest, and it’s unclear if this trend can be reversed over the next three years.
Source: Forbes