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Cobra Kai karate-kicked the crap out of both of those big fancy fantasy shows, Nielsen says

Cobra Kai karate-kicked the crap out of both of those big fancy fantasy shows, Nielsen says

www.avclub.com

Much attention has been paid, over the last few months, to the competition currently raging for the TV fantasy crown, with HBO’s House Of The Dragon on one side, and Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power—both immensely expensive, lushly produced series with very different takes on what fantasy audiences want—on the other. And both of them, as it turns out, can’t hold a candle to the former YouTube Red show where the surviving stars of The Karate Kid train local youths to fight like Pokémon on behalf of their various egos.

This is per Deadline, reporting on new streaming numbers from TV data company Nielsen, which reports that Netflix’s Cobra Kai has won the streaming wars for the second week running, its recently-arrived fifth season comfortably crane kicking the shit out of both big fantasy shows in the company’s count of total minutes streamed.

In fact, Cobra Kai came just a hair short of beating House Of The Dragon and Rings Of Power combined; Nielsen reports that viewers streamed 1.9 billion minutes of the series during the week of September 12 to September 18—these streaming numbers are always running on a bit of a delay—whereas House scored 960 million, and Rings 988 million. That time period, by the way, maps to episode 4 of House Of The Dragon, “King Of The Narrow Sea,” and episode 3 and a bit of episode 4 of Rings Of Power. It also maps to all of Cobra Kai season 5 (and all the seasons before it), suggesting that, for all that Netflix has gotten some flak of late for its continued adherence to the binge release model, as everyone else goes weekly to give their shows a longer tail, it does pay occasional dividends.

Cobra Kai stars Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Maridueña, Tanner Buchanan, and Mary Mouser; Netflix has yet to renew the show for a sixth season, although *elaborately gestures at the preceding 300 words of reported streaming dominance* c’mon, it’s not that hard to imagine.

1 billion well spent

 

[Batiman]

Fun cheesy show I watch with the family. Love it overall

 

[bloodydrake]

this really only shits on Rings of Power since streaming is the only venue.. while HoD majority of their views are from HBO(not included) with only minority of views Streaming(HBOmax)

 

[Kilau]

I don’t watch any of these shows so I don’t care that much but doesn’t Netflix have way more subscribers?

 

[balls of snow]

Ohh to be Bezos in the postmortem room of season 1 rings of power.

 

[TVexperto]

for only 1/100th of the price.

guess having a good script actually pays off

 

[Vestal]

Are we really comparing an entire season vs 2 half seasons(if that)during a single period of a week?

What?!?

 

[QSD]

So after weeks of speculation am I to understand Ralph Macchio has revealed himself to be Sauron?

 

[YCoCg]

Good, Cobra Kai is cheesy 80's fun in the modern days, it perfectly captured the feeling of the original movies to the point where I don't even care when it goes all soap opera with certain characters.

 

[BadBurger]

Fun cheesy show I watch with the family. Love it overall

Yep. Completely inoffensive, entertaining, nostalgic for the olds but at the same time fresh for the kids. Netflix got lucky when YouTube decided to abandon original content.

 

[GymWolf]

And we all know why

But really

Spoiler

 

[trikster40]

I watched Cobra Kai before LotR and House of Dragons, still haven’t even started those yet.

 

[YCoCg]

And we all know why

But really

Spoiler

How dare you, that's sexist!

...I was so glad to find out she's 25 so I didn't feel like a complete creep.

 

[jason10mm]

This "minutes watched" metric is veeeeery sketch. If Cobra Kai has an entire season out of 10x40 min eps then its possible fans watched the entire 400 minutes in a week versus just 60-70 min of HotD or RoP, so Cobra Kai "viewers" could be inflated 5-6x that of these weekly drop shows.

Still great for that show, I love it, but I don't think it is getting anywhere NEAR the viewers of HotD, might be on par with RoP though.

For RoP we really need to see if it has any legs. If no one is picking it up in 2-3 months then I gotta think Amazon will be in full blown panic mode. I can only imagine this was expected to be a constantly viewed show bringing folks into amazon.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Wasn't cobra kai a Youtube show?

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Well deserved. Cobra Kai was a lot of fun and better than most streaming shows I've seen recently.

 

[bitbydeath]

HBO doesn’t really exist outside of America right? Most would need to pirate Dragons to watch it, and as for Lord of the Rings, it’s on my list but I’ll wait until the full show is released before watching.

 

[Denton]

Cobrai Kai is fun and great, but I wish the next season would be the last one. End it on a high note, don't stretch it to mediocrity.

 

[Moneal]

This "minutes watched" metric is veeeeery sketch. If Cobra Kai has an entire season out of 10x40 min eps then its possible fans watched the entire 400 minutes in a week versus just 60-70 min of HotD or RoP, so Cobra Kai "viewers" could be inflated 5-6x that of these weekly drop shows.

Still great for that show, I love it, but I don't think it is getting anywhere NEAR the viewers of HotD, might be on par with RoP though.

For RoP we really need to see if it has any legs. If no one is picking it up in 2-3 months then I gotta think Amazon will be in full blown panic mode. I can only imagine this was expected to be a constantly viewed show bringing folks into amazon.

The entire show was available on the 9th, and netflix is much more a binge watch platform. It also won the previous week with only 3 days availability.

 

[AlteredForms]

Cobra Kai is absolutely delightful and I'm sure the original cast are still thanking Jesus for the new opportunity. I will say that the younger thespians need to get back into acting class as all their performances are wooden as fuck, the only exception being Xolo Mariduena who steals the show:

 

[HoodWinked]

Still pretty good but ya it is primarily due to the metric they use "minutes watched"

since an entire season is released at once people will watch it to exhaustion. then it will disappear after two weeks.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

HBO doesn’t really exist outside of America right? Most would need to pirate Dragons to watch it, and as for Lord of the Rings, it’s on my list but I’ll wait until the full show is released before watching.

HBO exists in many countries, and if not they have streaming agreements in place e.g. OCS in France has the whole HBO catalogue.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Good news

 

[Jaybe]

Still pretty good but ya it is primarily due to the metric they use "minutes watched"

since an entire season is released at once people will watch it to exhaustion. then it will disappear after two weeks.

Yeah this is basically a cherry-picked time frame for a click bait headline. One series’ full release versus an incremental weekly episodes of the others. A more fair comparison would be a 2 month window covering HotD and RoP’s run vs CK’s release week + 2 months following that.

 

[Moneal]

Yeah this is basically a cherry-picked time frame for a click bait headline. One series’ full release versus an incremental weekly episodes of the others. A more fair comparison would be a 2 month window covering HotD and RoP’s run vs CK’s release week + 2 months following that.

Not really cherry picked for a headline. It's the way Neilsen does its streaming ratings.

 

[AJUMP23]

Cobra Kai is excellent every time.

 

[Jaybe]

Not really cherry picked for a headline. It's the way Neilsen does its streaming ratings.

I mean the news outlet decided to go with its interpretation for a click bait headline. I understand the nielsen ratings data well and that they are simply reporting on the week.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Cobra Kai is excellent every time.

I need to watch this show

 

[Artoris]

Cobra Kai's streaming numbers nearly beat Rings Of Power and House Of The Dragon's combined numbers​

It is better It should not be but it is

 

[01011001]

I actually didn't expect that, I always had the impression it was just about average in terms of popularity.

I love the show tho.

 

[Ownage]

There are reasons why fast food sells so well. Same with certain forms of entertainment.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

As long as HotD continues to be made at the same level of quality for however long the story takes…

 

[fran.fernandez]

Lord of the rings is not bad, didn’t finish ep one yet … felt sleep at the middle. But it was good for sleep

 

[BaneIsPain]

cobra kai is so good. Even the weakest season (s2) imo, still enjoyable.

 

[gatti-man]

Cobra Kai is a trash show be serious. There is a difference between hbo max/prime viewership and whatever new slop rolls out on Netflix. I bet spiderhead and echo have great viewership numbers too and both were trash. Netflix people watch anything.