Amazon’s woke (and boring) reimagining of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Rings universe is bleeding viewers when it should be snowballing.
According to the far-left Hollywood Reporter, “The Rings of Power had 988 million minutes of viewing time in the United States from Sept. 12 to 18, per Nielsen (the show’s fourth episode debuted Sept. 16). That’s a decline of about 18 percent from the previous week’s 1.2 billion minutes.”
That’s a big decline, especially when Amazon is releasing new episodes every week. When a streamer dumps an entire season at one time, it makes sense for the show to decline in intensity as the weeks’ pass. Rings of Power is losing viewers when it should be gaining viewers. At the very least, if the show was any good (it’s not), the same number of viewers should be tuning in. Instead, people appear to be giving up. What Amazon was really hoping for here, which is why Amazon spent a billion — with a “B” — to produce this boondoggle, was a cultural phenomenon, a game-changer…
The idea behind releasing a new episode each week is two-fold: 1) hold onto Amazon Prime subscribers, and 2) snowball the series into a cultural juggernaut, in the same way shows like Game of Thrones picked up cultural clout as they rolled along.
Obviously, that’s not happening here. Even with new episodes, Rings of Power is losing viewers because viewers have stopped caring what happens next.
The show is popular. It came in at number two. But it was blown away by first place Cobra Kai, even though Netflix’s anti-woke Cobra Kai did dump all of its season five episodes all at once more a month ago. Cobra Kai earned 1.92 billion minutes viewed. Rings of Power came second with about half that: 988 million.
An important caveat is that Cobra Kai has more episodes to watch and, therefore, more minutes to view. Rings of Power has only four episodes.
However.
Let’s compare Rings of Power to HBO’s House of Dragon, which is also in its first season and drops episodes weekly…
House of Dragon nearly tied Rings of Power with 960 million streaming minutes viewed.
But.
House of Dragon is also available on all those HBO channels, so Dragon’s overall viewing number is much higher than the Rings’ viewership.
We’ll know more as the weeks pass, but things are looking pretty dire for Rings of Power right now. This is a show that should be improving with each new episode as viewers deepen their commitment to the story and characters. Word-of-mouth should be building. Excitement should be growing. Instead, the show is shedding viewers.
Critics gushed over Rings, but who trusts those rent-seekers anymore?
The backlash against Rings from the public reminds me of what happened to the Star Wars films. And we all know what happened to those.
Amazon has committed to five seasons of Rings. I suggest it start firing some people and hire mature, experienced (including in the real world) storytellers.
When the analysts are falling asleep…
Amazon can attack us as racist, attack us as sexist, and hide bad reviews, but it can’t make us watch.
These smug, insulting shows deserve to tank.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.