Although streaming services try to keep their viewing numbers secret, Amazon Studios was all too happy to crow that the premiere of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series had 25 million global viewers on the day it premiered. That’s quite a lot! But as it turns out, by the time the first season ended, a shocking number of those viewers as had already given up.
In a new examination of Amazon Studios, the Hollywood Reporter mentions that only 37 percent of Rings of Power’s U.S. viewers stuck around through the Prime Video series’ eighth episode. That would be a massive decline for any TV series, but especially one that Amazon paid half a billion dollars for and had ordered a second season of before the first episode premiered. Internationally, it faired a little better, with only 55 percent of viewers abandoning the show along the way. “A 50 percent completion rate would be a solid but not spectacular result, according to insiders,” stated THR.
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Yikes. I will say I think Rings of Power got better as it went on, but eight episodes is a long time to keep major characters’ names from us, and the titular rings didn’t even show up until the season finale. The series was undeniably gorgeous to look at, but storywise, it took its sweet time—time around 60 percent of its audience no longer felt like giving.
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