Rings Of Power vs. House Of The Dragon: Nielsen releases first head-to-head ratings numbers
The first ratings directly comparing Amazon's Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power and HBO's House Of The Dragon are finally in
Aux News Dragon
It’s time, once again, to wrestle with the most important pop culture question of a generation: Do people prefer big-budget fantasy shows where people take their pants off, or the ones where they keep them on?
That’s right: Per Variety, Nielsen has just released some streaming viewership statistics for August 29 through September 4, i.e., the first week where both Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, and HBO’s House Of The Dragon, were both out there, duking it out for your digital attention with all their elves and incest and intrigue and shit.
But before we get into those delicious, juicy numbers—oooh, who’s winning, who’s the king of the ring-dragons, we gotta know!—we do unfortunately have to eat our veggies in the form of the same damn caveats that always seem to crop up around third-party assessments of streaming viewership numbers. For instance: As Variety points out, the timing window doesn’t exactly line up here: Dragon issued its premiere episode back on August 21, so what we’re seeing with this data is the period between right after it put out its second episode, and right after it put out its third. (Rings, meanwhile, released its first two episodes four days into the measured period.) There’s also the issue that House Of The Dragon airs simultaneously on HBO—to the tune of about 10 million people, at least for the premiere—while The Lord Of The Rings is streaming-exclusive, so these numbers by default can’t reflect actual viewership.
(Also: There’s the fact that, while Nielsen has gotten better at this stuff over the decade since streaming essentially smashed their entire business model into tiny little bits, their numbers still get refuted by the actual networks and services all the time. Also, these are only from the U.S., natch.)
Okay, got all that? Expectations suitably set? Understanding of nuance and the complexities of the streaming ecosystem properly achieved? Great!
Anyway, Rings Of Power kicked the shit out of House Of The Dragon, with viewers reportedly streaming 1.3 billion minutes of the Amazon show, while the Game Of Thrones prequel scored a piddly 781 million. That put Rings at the top of Nielsen’s charts for the week, while House only came in at No. 5. (One spot behind Game Of Thrones, in fact, which presumably has had an uptick in interest ahead of the new show’s release.)
As Variety points out, regardless of the whole pissing match aspect, this is the first third-party data verifying Amazon’s own claims that 25 million people watched the Lord Of The Rings premiere. Who knew: Throw billions of dollars at one of the best known IPs on the planet, market it relentlessly, and own one of the largest retail conglomerates in existence and you, too, might someday have a number one fantasy TV hit!
133 Comments
“Rings of Power” may be streaming only, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot more people had Prime video than have HBO and HBOmax.I’m sure someone less lazy than me can Google this in about 30 seconds.
I just assumed anything tied to Game of Throne’s would have a built-in audience whereas LotR’s hasn’t been relevant for twenty years. The Hobbit movies were universally hated.
Fandom sites are not a good measure of the general population. Battle of Five Armies, which I would say is the worst of the trilogy, has a 74% Audience Score.
Way more people have Prime Video then HBO. 200 million vs 79 million. The 200 million is made up of people that use Amazon Prime so not that many people actually use Prime Video, but since its free with prime thats 200 million people that could watch Rings of Power for free.
could watch Rings of Power for free money
for no additional cost* my point being there are 200 million people already paying for Prime that can watch Rings of Power without spending additional money, while there are only 79 million who could do so for House of Dragons
Plus it’s not a good sign when the dragons are the best characters on your show.
Don’t agree.House of the Dragon may not have any likeable characters, but you can’t accuse them of being poorly written. Meanwhile the dragons are very badly drawn, and I mean that from a literal standpoint; the CGI has been nothing if not underwhelming so far.
What? The show is pretty good.
Also, Rings of Power is very carefully created to be accessible to older children and young teens, so families can watch it together. The gore is cartoonish and there’s no sex, only chaste romantic longing. It will be absolutely scandalous if it turns out Theo has pointy ears, I’ll tell you what.But the point is that Rings of Power is designed for a much wider audience.
Plus, RoP S1E6 finally brought home the bacon. Worthy of the movies.
Shows designed to be that way almost inevitably fail.
That is more or less what I was going to say. The potential audience size for Prime is massive. So the comparison isn’t exactly fair. But one thing is sure: Rings’ success cannot be disputed, despite all the naysayers and critics. Is that success enough to handle the equally massive production costs associated with the series? That remains to be seen.
Just for Thursday night football alone.
They’ve both been beat 6 weeks in a row by She-Hulk
This is honestly crazy to me. I mean, I’m liking She Hulk a whole lot, but I’m not sure if I’d bet on any D+ show beating either of these flagship fantasy series, and yet here we are.
Watching She-hulk doesn’t require note-taking or reference material.
And She-Hulk is actually fun and enjoyable, I just found RoP a chore to watch with very few of the actors seeming to actually be interested in their characters
Unlike, apparently, that other show no one has watche— er, mentioned. 👀
Also, She-Hulk is funny and fast-paced instead of dour and self-important.
Neither does House of the Dragon
Tell that to tor.com, which produces a 2,500 word analysis starting from the episode title by a professor of Victorian Gothic Literature complete with citations.
Also an episode of She-Hulk is a breezy half hour. Those Ring of Power run times are a bit much. I like the show but over an hour commitment per episodes means a much slower watched show, at least by me
It was pointed out to me that incel dudes were baited into this show (with stuff like Hulk and Daredevil) specifically so they could be cast as the villain as they’re watching it. And now I find it utterly hilarious. Also this weeks episode was pretty great overall.
[citation needed]
You mean, She-Hulk is getting review bombed and trolled higher than LOTR and GoT.
Trolls are annoyed they cast a woman as She-Hulk?
Woke Hollywood turning our Hulks into She-Hulks!
No, buy they supremely annoyed that She-Hulk has opinions, talks about how being a woman can be pretty sucky at times, and twerks with Megan Thee Stallion in a post-credit scenes. Seriously, I’ve never seen so much hate for such a lightweight show.
She-Hulk is getting review bombed downward where reviews can be submitted, actually. But this convo was about SVOD numbers, not reviews.
Yeah I’m being facetious/joking.
Oh
Yah, cause the only thing people have more of than Prime or HBO is D+. And it’s a not lower entry bar in terms of backstory then either of those. Not really a surprise.
You mean that WOKE FAILURE!! :)I’m sure it’s bad for my soul but when I want a laugh I watch the YouTube Right Wing media critics because everything they say bullshit and easily disproven
It’s funny that the prequels to the two most popular fantasy franchises came out at roughly the same time and both enraged racists by casting black people.
Why are you bringing up anything to do with race when nothing has been mentioned about it here. Quit trying to stir the pot!
Sorry, I can’t be sure if you’re being ironic or not.
I mentioned race because it was half the point I was making? It’s not like I brought it up for no reason. If they just came out at the same time that wouldn’t be as big of a coincidence.
I want to know why there is no Muslims in either show. Not one habib in sight!
Because it was an astute observation that sadly still needs to be discussed because of bigots like you who’d prefer to sweep things under the rug. 👀
“Astute observation”….uh huh.Maybe 2 months ago it was astute. Now? It’s tired. It’s boring and it’s run its course. Except for the people who continually lob this into the discourse, despite it no longer being a real talking point. The show is subpar at best. And race has nothing to do with that opinion.
Exactly..
nani?
Because a lot of people are talking about it and the racists are as well.
Stirring the pot of racists is exactly what should be done at every opportunity.
Why are you bringing up anything to do with race when nothing has been mentioned about it here. Quit trying to stir the pot!
“funny”
Well ok maybe the last part isn’t “ha ha” funny.
If we can’t have a good chuckle at the pathetic decline of what somehow passes for discourse in our society, then what do we really have left
Lol what. It has nothing to do with race. House of the Dragon is actually watchable and good. The Ring of Power is utter trash though.
I don’t understand this reply. I wasn’t commenting on the relative quality of the two shows. Obviously the reactions to casting black actors in roles like elves or valyrians have something to do with race.
Oh my God, you guys are so fragile and incapable of accepting criticism. Instead of looking in the mirror, you instead reflexively call all critics “racist”. What an intellectual crutch. Never have to think for yourself, or improve your perspective. Nope, just cast all who doubt as evil racists. Meanwhile you guys destroy every beloved IP, retcon the shiz out of many characters. Stop gaslighting everyone. ROP is trash, but fear not, it is equally diverse in its shittiness.
… are you under the impression that I worked on the show? I haven’t even gotten around to watching it yet.
“I made this account just to push back against people who are complaining about the obvious racist reacton to some fantasy shows. I’m totally not racist, and in fact, YOU PEOPLE are the REAL racists for calling everyone who disagrees with you racist! I don’t een care about this. I’m actually laughing.”
“Not only am I not mad, I am mad that ‘people like you’ keep changing characters to be more diverse.”
you instead reflexively call all critics “racist”.{citation needed}
Wow.I remember back when the AV Club Commentariat used to be full of smart people arguing about pop culture, not racists screaming at being called out for what they are….Here’s another virtue signal for you—Trump would be VERY proud of you today.
lol
^ This comment right here is why we still gotta talk about race.
It’s funny how mad you got because there is a black dwarf in a show.
Next they’ll be complaining about brown dwarfs in star trek.
…I’ll see myself out.
Found the assmad racist.
I wasn’t even aware of anything of that nature involving House of the Dragon.
Yeah, they opted to make the other prominent Valyrian family black instead of looking like Daenerys and her brother. It doesn’t seem to bother people as much as the elves but I saw a lot of complaints about it in the run up to the show.
To me, the whole thing is silly, having diverse casting shouldn’t still be an issue in 2022, but here we are getting distracted and bogged down by people obsessed with race, on both sides. I just want good stories and for no one group of people to feel singled out in a negative way, you know what I mean?
I agree it should not and that people make too much out of the “controversy” to drive clicks. I was just making what I thought was an innocent observation based on media coverage of the shows, and I’ve gotten more reply notifications in the past week than ever before, I’m pretty sure.
lmao if you live under a rock.
“and both enraged racists by casting black people.”and largely the vast majority of whinging hasn’t been about anything related to race…hell, I don’t think I’ve really seen anyone say anything about in regards to House of the Dragon.
Those people will claim these “woke” shows are failing and unpopular when neither seems true. They also claimed Miss Marvel and She-Hulks are flops because they didn’t post numbers like the fist few MCU shows did but that is a silly metric because they still out perform almost everything else on streaming.
I just hope both teams have fun.
Bizarre I’ve seen basically nobody say that. A few people on twitter who had no followers and that’s it. Pointing out a few twitter people who feel that way is the standard playbook now to peg anyone who doesn’t like a show including critics as a bad person. It’s first in the playbook because it works. Hopefully once again viewers are allowed to dislike a show without being branded.
I only really follow the reviews and comments for House of the Dragon, as I haven’t watched Rings of Power yet. You don’t see it any more because it’s been like six episodes, but in the run up to the release I saw a fair bit of it. Pointing out a few twitter people who feel that way is the standard playbook now to peg anyone who doesn’t like a show including critics as a bad person. It’s first in the playbook because it works. Hopefully once again viewers are allowed to dislike a show without being branded. Well for that it’s worth, that’s not what I was going for. Obviously it’s possible to dislike a tv show for non-racist reasons. Is anyone really claiming that either show is perfect and if you don’t like it you must be racist?
It’s like Christmas for the incels. First they get frothed up over She-Hulk and now they can get ready for this.
No one gives a shit about House of Dragon recasting because the writing is good, and the characters are interesting, and still work within the worldMean while over at Lord of the Rings…..OOF
Both loved and hated by racists for the same reason but the actual number of people who care enough one way or another is so small that the amount of press recieved by it can only be explained as marketing. Something CNN figured out years ago but flies right over the average persons head it seems.
Yeah it’s almost like this country has a deeply seated racism problem and as history of exploiting that aspect for financial gain…it’s almost like that’s a huge problem that we’ve never properly cracked and instead just prefer the lightest tinge of progress
The only racist post I’ve seen so far is yours.
Well you apparently don’t know what racism is, so maybe fuck off.
Rings of Power episode 5 is pretty bonkers. don’t care for the Hobbit ancestor storyline so far.
ok but devil’s advocate… didn’t Rings of Power release 3 eps to start while HotD only releases 1 each week? so there were more minutes to available…
RoP released two episodes, and HotD released its second episode, so technically they were virtually tied for available minutes (I’m not sure the exact episode lengths but two ~1 hour installments I imagine). The excitement of watching something on Day 1 would have probably passed for HotD, which is what the article is mostly going on about. Basically you’re looking at about even numbers for both series, since HotD got about 60% of RoP numbers, which would account for a smaller percentage of people starting to watch the former on week 2
Of course, we’ll find out the important statistic sometime later, when someone figures out which one is pirated more. At the site I frequent, HotD seems to be about twice as popular as RoP, though I don’t know if that’s at all representative.
When it comes to piracy numbers, the nature of Amazon Prime is a bit of a confounding variable. Lots more people are likely to have Prime, thanks to its functionality beyond its streaming content. Even for someone who would be inclined to pirate content, they’re likely to have Prime for the purchasing/shipping.
That’s a good point. I’d been wondering why the gap is so large, as even things like Archer and Rick and Morty seem to get more downloads than RoP. I’d forgotten that a lot of people just have Prime as a default.Even HotD is in a totally different position than GoT was when it was the most downloaded show, since for years you couldn’t legally watch it without paying for cable and HBO, and at least now you can just stream their stuff.
Someone do a wellness check on the angry Tolkien nerds
GOT ta say, this conversation about fantasy series is refreshingly civil
Not a Tolkien nerd here at all. I never read the books but loved the movie trilogy. ROP is definitely beautiful and really brings the Tolkienverse to life, but the show is boring and hell and terribly written.
Oh no, different opinions on a TV show.
I don’t know, if you believe some of the Rings of Power critics, I’d say about 1 billion of those minutes were just watching to prove how much it sucks. One of the greys here considers it his solemn duty to watch it every week just to point out how much money Amazon spent whilst not hiring any horses. Week after week most people tune in to make sure it’s still just as terrible as they always thought it was going to be, so they can go online and tell everyone so repeatedly.I hear it’s about ethics in television journalism or something.
Well this week had lots o’horses, so that grey will be sad.
lol yeah i def thought of “but where are the horses!?” guy this ep
You are fucking joking me. Do we have a MAGAmicrodick actually taking the time each week to tell us how much a show sucks? Oh, this I have to see.
Fantasy Nerd-Gate
Week after week most people tune in
And that’s all they care about. If the people “hate watching” something would stop watching it, then it might make a difference. But if people are tuning in, just to complain, they’re still tuning in.
I’m grey and I know how to ride a horse. Wait, what was the question?
I’ve been watching every week despite not really enjoying it. I like the source material and want to see if it will get any better. This weeks episode was finally a good one despite cringey dialogue. There isn’t a lot of fantasy on TV, so I guess I’ll just take it where I can get it. Regardless of quality. Kinda the same with sci-fi for me. I’ll give anything a chance. Mostly.
I mean, mocking subpar media was always fun. It’s one of the pillars of this website for over two decades, surely?
I never read the books, I quite like watching it. I could care less if it’s accurate.
If only it were good.
“There’s also the issue that House Of The Dragon airs simultaneously on HBO […] so these numbers by default can’t reflect actual viewership”“Also, these are only from the U.S.”Nevermind then.
The “nuance” of it all also matters as you say. Nielsen and you, both ignoring the overall reach of the respective streaming platforms is pretty egregious. Sure the raw numbers mean something.Amazon Prime, a service in which a great deal of the population has, not because of its video, but because of its “free” 2-day shipping and other consumer good perks, is not equal to a 15$ a month premium streaming service/channel. If Nielsen was able to give us a minute/subscriber number we could compare apples to apples. But as it is. we can only suggest that HBO’s viewership could possibly include subscribers that subscribed primarily for the show. You will never be able to say that about Prime without Amazon giving us numbers of how many prime subscriptions are month to month and not year to year.
Yeah, but that’s not much different than comparing Nielsen ratings for a show on network tv vs a show on a paid cable network. Network TV is obviously going to have a bigger reach than the cable network. So really, your problem is inherent to Nielsen ratings, not specific to these two shows.
Go WOKE, get RICHER! lol
Grifters can’t handle this news. They completely failed to take down Rings of Power! All their badly done racist youtube thumbnails couldn’t help, LMAO!!!
I’d outlaw right wing grifters on youtube if I ran the company. Go take that racist hate somwhere else!
I love HotD but have no interest in RoP. HotD is excellent but from what I’ve seen of RoP (which isn’t much), it doesn’t seem to relate well to Peter Jackson’s work.
The Variety article points out that Nielsen’s numbers only account for HBO Max streaming and not HBO’s cable channels. They also did the math on Amazon’s numbers showing they amount to around 10 million viewers. Less than half of what Amazon claimed with its boasts of 25 million. So no RoP did not kick the sh*t out of anything, it’s metrics are just a complete (if underwhelming) picture while HoTD’s metrics are only showing a half or even a third of the actual viewership.
Forbes did a pretty good analysis on these figures . It essentially comes down to them being skewed by two episodes airing back to back of the rings of power and thus doubling their ratings and HBO’s House of the Dragon being aired on cable first rather than being a streaming only show . As they put it this is like comparing “apples to horses” . The biggest issue is that streaming giants like Prime don’t release data so we only have their word for how well they are doing and as we now see with Warner being sued for lying over how well HBO is doing by investors that isn’t exactly reliable . The good news is a lot of these companies are looking at advertising related tiers which will mean they will have to be far more forthcoming with the data that they have been in the past .
This is the Bud Bowl to me. I don’t really care who wins, I’m just amused at two of the same things going against each other. The question is: Which show is the Bud Light and which is the Budweiser?
I’d assume Bud Light is the one with fewer tits, but maybe that’s just me.
Bud light has the same great tits, but with fewer calories
I have access to Amazon Prime (via my friend’s account — shh!) and have watched the first 1 and 1/3 episodes of RoP.Meh.The cinematography is excellent, but the acting not so much, the dialogue not so much, and I feel like I’m watching 5 different shows mashed into one (i.e. all the different story lines).Mind you, I’ve managed to sit through all the confusion in the episodic Marvel shows “Loki,” “Wandavision,” and “Moon Knight.” I feel, at this point, that RoP is worse than them and am moving on to “She-Hulk.”
No comment on HotD (or GoT) because I don’t have HBO.
what about piracy? a cursory glance on one of the main trackers shows 2,790 seeders for the first episode of ROP while HOD has 7,200.
I think that reflects that many more people have prime than have HBO (unsurprisingly). I mean, I’ve had Prime for year because I want free shipping.
yea, i’ve been a prime member practically since they launched it for the shipping alone. for some reason our ATT family plan includes “free” hbomax so we have that for now too. i was 80% being goofy / 20% the article made me wanna peak at the high seas numbers.
Yeah, I have “free” HBO through AT&T as well. Only reason I have it, honestly. But I think, with so many having Amazon Prime because they’ve always had it, there’s no need to pirate the show. They can just watch it even if they are only mildly interested.
Wonder what the numbers are for See on 🍎 tv in comparison to RoP & HotD?
I think it’s important to note that anyone with an Amazon Prime account has access to Ring’s of Power, which I’m certain has far more subscribers than HBO, as subscribing to HBO does not let you order toothpaste with same day delivery. So regardless of how the shows compare in quality or demand, the sample size for one is probably multiples bigger than the other.
Sort of the same as saying more people eat McDonalds than they do In-N-Out, therefore people prefer McDonalds.
A PG-13 series based on lore from a beloved franchise on a wildly successful platform that is essential a bonus for people who pay Amazon for fast shipping was always gonna best and R rated prequel to a series who has lost a lot of luster on a premium steaming/cable service that is being gutted by its new CEO. What would be interesting is to see how each show grows. Ring of Power did better out of the gate but from what I’ve heard people seem to be liking the new Dragon show. I suspect their end of season finales may be a closer race. Personally just finally started Ring of Power and it’s enjoyable. I will get to House of Dragon eventually but in a house with kids it’s far easier to watch the more family friendly of the two shows.
I haven’t watched house of the dragon, but I am thoroughly enjoying ROP. I’m a huge Tolkien nerd have been since I was a child and definitely enjoy seeing Amazon’s take on the second age while they add some noteworthy first age items in the background of certain scenes. Great show and I can’t wait to see the finale.
I’m waiting on HotD until it’s over (so I guess potentially years in the future). I like RoP so far, though it still feels “fun but inconsequential” right now. I do love the aesthetics of the show. They really captured how Numenor looked in my mind’s eye. And Khazad-dûm was also a real pleasure.
I feel like they’re both enjoyable for different reasons and if we get more fantasy series as a whole out of it, I can enjoy the variety without feeling forced to pit them against each other as our only chance to get a decent fantasy television series.
Totally with you there I’m a fantasy nerd at heart so I’m always down for Dragons with or without tits
House of the Dragon fucking sucks so bad.
Ring of Power rules. House of Dragon has been in a downward slop every episode as far as liking it, it’s really been bad, it’s definitely not a Game of Thrones level. Goes from bad to worse. I’m really hoping for the new John Snow series because this one sucks. It’s not what I hoped for. Sad to say because I love Game of Thrones.
Yeah, it’s terrible. There’s zero characterization or even explanation of why the pieces keep getting moved. The time slips are handled so poorly. There was exactly one performance worth watching on the show (and one character given a bit of work to do), and they both recast the actor and made the character unrecognizable.I didn’t have high expectations, but this is way worse than I imagined.Rings of Power, on the other hand, keeps hitting it out of the park.
I mean, kind of spinning the numbers bigtime. It has more minutes because they released two episodes that first night whereas most folks watching HOTD already saw episode one and were watching two in that period.
Your writing here was insufferable. Do you really have that much disdain for your audience?
This last ep was fucking epic. #ringsofpower
Here’s the thing about Neilsen ratings- they’re trash. They’re irrelevant. And in the past decade, they’ve become wildly inaccurate because of streaming. Streaming companies are never gonna share their data with Neilsen, because, why the hell would they?Fuck Neilsen
wow
so going “woke” did not..in fact, cause the Tolkien one to go broke, spiffy. (and yes, ironic use of the term, or else i would have to punch myself in the face.)
It’s like they never got the memo that not everybody is down to be willfully and actively racist and are surprised at any attempt by individuals to make motions of addressing the matter. Have you ever considered that there’s something detrimental to manufacturing inequality in a consumer economy…like it would topple without enough people with spending power to maintain all the things and go you always be filling holes with half measures as needless disaster build more and more that wouldn’t exist if you just…didn’t do the inequality thing.