LONDON, ENGLAND – AUGUST 30: Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO Lauren Sánchez attend “The … (+)
This week, Amazon finally released the viewing figures for the first four episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 on Prime Video. This is the first half of the season, with only four episodes left.
According to Amazon, Season 2 reached 40 million viewers in 11 days. What that means exactly, however, is a little harder to say. Variety reports, “It’s difficult to put the statistic into full context because Amazon hasn’t defined how it quantifies its viewership. For example, 40 million could simply be the number of people who watched any portion of the available episodes.”
The publication notes that while we don’t have a clear definition of what a “viewer” actually is, we can make some comparisons. Namely, Season 1 of Rings of Power reached 25 million viewers in just one day, despite only airing the first two episodes. This is clearly a massive drop in viewership compared to the season.
This is not surprising considering recent reports from Luminate and Samba TV showing a massive drop in viewership in Season 2. Ratings fell throughout the first season as viewers left in droves, and most of those who abandoned the sinking ship have evidently not returned.
It’s a shame. I had really hoped that a big-budget live-action Middle Earth series would satisfy my need for epic fantasy. Instead, the series was given to inexperienced showrunners who were clearly completely out of their depth. My hopes that they would listen to the critics and come back with an improved second season were quickly dashed. Amazon is now throwing good money after bad on this outrageously expensive prestige project.
To add some context: Amazon’s latest hit Stand out The series – which was fantastic – reached 65 million viewers in 16 days. Rings of Power Season 2 remains one of Amazon’s biggest hits and is among Prime Video’s five most-watched TV offerings, falling well short of Season 1.
