‘The Mandalorian’: A Hit So Big Even Netflix Can Respect It (Subscriber Extra Edition)
“The Mandalorian” was expected to make a big splash for Disney+ with new episodes last month after the series generated considerable buzz upon debuting in November 2019. But it’s now clear just how big the show has become in recent weeks.
In fact, figures from 7Park Data shared exclusively with Variety Intelligence Platform suggest that “The Mandalorian” was the biggest streaming title across Disney+, Apple TV+, Hulu, Prime Video and Netflix last month.
“Mandalorian” reached roughly 29% of 7Park Data panel members in November, besting “The Queen’s Gambit” at nearly 20% and “The Crown” at about 14%. It also reached more viewers than Hulu’s “Animaniacs” (7%).
Additionally, “The Mandalorian” in November was Disney+’s biggest show by 7Park Data cross-platform audience reach since “Hamilton” in July (37%), which was Disney+’s biggest title of the year.
7Park Data currently only measures viewership of Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Apple TV+ and Disney+. 7Park tabulates its data by measuring the SVOD viewership of over 15,000 U.S. households that occur on connected TVs (i.e. Roku, et al.). Mobile viewership is not reflected in 7Park’s data.
The 29% figure of “The Mandalorian” marks a rare 7Park Data cross-platform audience share ranking win for Disney+, which along with the other SVODs, is usually beat by Netflix originals.
However, it’s not all winning for “The Mandalorian” since “Queen’s Gambit” was the most-watched title by time spent across SVOD platforms 7Park measured in November. That’s particularly impressive for “Queen’s Gambit,” given the show debuted on October 23.
“The Crown” was unable to nab the top spot in any of 7Park’s November cross-platform rankings due to “The Mandalorian” and “Queen’s Gambit.” Still, third place is certainly no failure for a show, which may be one of the most expensive Netflix original shows ever made.
Netflix’s top performing original titles helped it gain more viewership overall in November, 7Park’s data suggests.
Households on average spent over 670 minutes with Netflix in November, which was higher than the comparable figure in October but lower than the figures in August and September.
It doesn’t seem that many of Netflix’s Oscar hopefuls played a significant role in driving November time spent, though. ”The Life Ahead” and ”Hillbilly Elegy,” which both debuted last month, didn’t crack 7Park’s Netflix top 10 time spent ranking.
Meanwhile, Prime Video saw its buzzy “Borat” sequel, which some see as helping catapult Sacha Baron Cohen into Oscar contention, perform particularly well among Prime Video viewers by 7Park data’s count.
Hulu, which isn’t known to be pushing into Oscar territory as aggressively as other streamers, saw its 2020 “Animaniacs” original grab a significant time spent share in November.
In November, Disney+’s historical drama original “The Right Stuff” was a top performer, although it barely inched out the “Mulan” remake in terms of time spent.
Meanwhile, “The Mandalorian” in November drew its biggest crowd on Disney+ since December 2019, when the latter half of the first season of that show was rolling out.
An impressive 48% of Disney+ viewers among 7Park Data’s panel in November 2020 watched “The Mandalorian,” a figure just shy of the 53% of panel viewers that watched the title in December 2019.
Moreover, those figures suggest that more Disney+ viewers flocked to “The Mandalorian” during the rollout of S2 of the show versus its S1 rollout. 38% of the Disney+ audience measured by 7Park Data watched “The Mandalorian” in November 2019, a figure ten percentage points lower than the comparable audience share figure in November 2020.
One note: The 48% November 2020 audience share figure for “The Mandalorian” above differs from the 29% audience share the show has in the cross-platform audience ranking because the cross-platform ranking only counts 7Park Panel viewers that watched 2 or more SVODs in a given month.
In other words, the cross-platform ranking isn’t counting some 7Park Panel viewers who only watched Disney+ and a lot of “The Mandalorian” in November 2020.
Apple saw audiences flock to its awards hopeful “On the Rocks,” though “The Morning Show” reclaimed its seat as the top title by time spent.