Amazon’s Rings of Power Season 2 Viewer Numbers Might Not Be as Great as They Seem

Prime Video returned to Middle-earth August 29, with a three-episode drop ushering successful The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power play two. Marketing for the caller play played up how action-packed it would be, an important prime to item aft complaints astir season one‘s glacial pacing. It besides stirred up excitement by teasing the instauration of fan-favorite Tolkien quality Tom Bombadil. But the archetypal viewing numbers are here, and they suggest possibly Amazon inactive has immoderate enactment to do.

Variety reports that play 2 of the series, which is acceptable thousands of years earlier the much acquainted events of The Lord of the Rings but features a fewer repetition characters, “has reached 40 cardinal viewers globally successful 11 days.” This information comes from Amazon—but the commercialized notes that contextualizing these numbers is not arsenic elemental arsenic it seems, due to the fact that “Amazon has not defined however it quantifies its viewership; for example, 40 cardinal could simply beryllium the fig of radical who watched immoderate information of the disposable episodes.”

This is important due to the fact that 1 of the pieces of viewership accusation that emerged aft play 1 was that portion a batch of folks started watching Rings of Power, acold less really watched done the play 1 finale, which besides happened to beryllium the occurrence successful which the titular rings were finally being forged. In April 2023, the Hollywood Reporter noted that a specified 37 percent of Rings of Power viewers successful the U.S. really finished watching each 8 episodes. That’s a beauteous dismal completion rate, particularly for a amusement with a reportedly astir half-billion-dollar budget. (In that aforesaid 2023 article, THR wrote that Rings of Power is “believed to beryllium the astir costly bid ever made.”)

And portion 40 cardinal viewers successful 11 days sounds similar a robust turnout, it’s not rather arsenic magical erstwhile you see that play 1 had 25 cardinal viewers successful a azygous day, erstwhile it premiered its archetypal 2 episodes to captious acclaim connected September 1, 2022. Just for comparison: different high-profile Prime Video series, video crippled adaptation Fallout, debuted earlier successful 2024 with a binge drop (as opposed to Rings of Power’s weekly rollout), and scored 65 cardinal planetary viewers successful its archetypal 16 days.

Still, Amazon remains optimistic astir its clip successful Middle-earth; it adjacent seems immoderate viewers are playing catch-up with those play 1 episodes they might’ve missed. A unit memo from Amazon Studios main Jennifer Salke shared by Variety reads successful part: “Through the 2nd play of [Rings of Power] launch, according to our cardinal measures, the bid is showing that we person different immense deed play connected our hands arsenic 40 cardinal viewers person already watched [season two]. We’ve besides observed that tens of millions of viewers person watched [season one] since aboriginal August. We’ve seen an awesome magnitude of our Rings of Power customers coming from extracurricular of the U.S., which is simply a testament to the show’s resonance with planetary audiences and the singular maturation of Prime Video customers worldwide.”

New episodes of Rings of Power play two—which volition again tally for 8 installments—arrive Thursdays connected Prime Video.

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