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Over the last nine months, four new streaming services have flooded the market with new original programming, but a new report finds that Disney+ drama The Mandalorian generated the most demand.
Third-party measurement firm Parrot Analytics has compared the launch weeks of Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max and Peacock, looking at how demand for their original shows stacked up against average demand for U.S. TV shows during that period of time.
The company found that The Mandalorian was far and away the most anticipated of all streaming shows. The Jon Favreau drama, which is set in the world of Star Wars, was made available on Disney+’s Nov. 12 launch day. Demand for the show was more than 55 times higher than the average TV series during that same week.
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“The Mandalorian is in a class of its own,” says Alejandro Rojas, director of applied analytics at Parrot.
Disney has not said how many viewers The Mandalorian received, but the service did attract 10 million sign ups in its first 24 hours. It now has over 60 million global subscribers.
Apple TV+, which launched a few days earlier on Nov. 1, had three shows that surpassed demand for the average original TV series on its platform during that period. They were For All Mankind, Dickinson and See. The Morning Show, the Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston drama that received significant marketing support, fell slightly below the average.
At HBO Max, meanwhile, Looney Tunes Cartoons was most in-demand. The reboot of the classic series, which debuted on HBO Max’s May 27 launch day, was significantly more in demand than Anna Kendrick starrer Love Life or shortform series The Not Too Late Show with Elmo. Demand for Search Party also fell below the average TV show during that period, but that may have to do with the fact that its third season didn’t debut for another month.
Demand for Peacock shows Brave New World and Curious George was well above the average during the week that NBCUniversal rolled out its new service widely. That streamer, which launched July 15, had to delay production on some of its planned launch slate due to the coronavirus pandemic.
These new entrants are still chasing Netflix, which is the market leader with nearly 193 million subscribers. Parrot data shows that Netflix originals and exclusive titles are significantly more in demand than every other streamer, including Hulu and Amazon’s Prime Video. Rojas attributes some of Netflix’s lead to the sheer volume of its content library, which has increasingly focused on original content and marquee exclusives as the major media companies pull back the content that they own.
As the streaming wars heats up and more outlets compete for a person’s attention, says Rojas, “every title has a different value.”
He continues, “It goes beyond viewership and the traditional way of looking at the industry. It’s all about capturing people’s interest and connecting emotionally with the people so they see that show as part of their life.”
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