“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” vs. “House Of The Dragon”: The fact that the two fantasy series are running at the same time literally screams for all kinds of comparisons. Now there are figures that prove it: The Amazon series was streamed significantly more.
At first glance, the matter seems clear: “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was watched significantly more than “House Of The Dragon”. This is suggested by figures from Nielsen, a provider specialising in streaming, for the period 29 August to 4 September 2022. During this period, “The Rings of Power” was watched for a total of 1.25 billion minutes in the USA (number 1), while “House Of The Dragon” came in fifth with “only” 781 million minutes.
In addition, “The Rings of Power” started on 1 or 2 September 2022 (depending on the time zone) with a double episode and thus collected these 1.25 billion minutes of watch time in only three days. “House Of The Dragon”, on the other hand, already started on 21 August and has thus already released three episodes in the same period.
COMPARING APPLES WITH PEARS
So the difference in the number of episodes alone makes the comparison between “The Rings Of Power” and “House Of The Dragon” difficult, but could still be understood as another argument for the triumph of the Amazon Prime Video series over the HBO production (after all, it was watched more despite fewer episodes). But this already brings us to the much bigger problem with the comparison:
Nielsen really only takes streaming into account in the figures, but “House Of The Dragon” is also shown on the pay-TV channel HBO in the USA – and that makes a considerable difference. As the US industry magazine Variety writes, about 3.2 million of a total of 9.9 million US households watched the first episode of “House Of The Dragon” on TV, which is pretty much exactly one third. And these 3.2 million people are missing from the Nielsen figures.
FINALLY RELIABLE “THE RINGS OF POWER” FIGURES
Despite this, it should be enough for “The Rings of Power” to win overall, even if one were to add the minutes watched from linear television. Much more interesting and important, however, is that the Nielsen figures allow for the first time ever an assessment of the success or failure of “The Rings of Power” that is not based on the less useful figures from Amazon itself.
And in this respect, too, it can be said that “The Lord of the Rings” series is a great success for Amazon and that the investment of a total of one billion dollars (for the rights and a total of five seasons) should pay off.
