In the latest fantasy streaming battle, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power retained a slim lead over House of the Dragon on Nielsen’s weekly streaming chart for September 12 to 18.
Prime Video’s Rings pulled in 988 million minutes of streaming, while Dragon got 960 million, down from 1.203 billion and 1.016 billion, respectively, the week before. Both shows finished well behind the repeat winner for the week, Cobra Kai on Netflix. While the fantasy series dipped compared with the prior Labor Day frame despite adding episodes per their weekly release cadence, Cobra Kai actually gained 10%, reaching 1.9 billion minutes, in part because its 50 episodes were available for the full week. The Karate Kid reboot won the previous week even though its fifth season had only been available for three days.
In the fantasy realm, the comparisons on the Nielsen chart are not the full story. While HBO Max streaming is captured by the weekly rankings, HBO has been averaging 29 million viewers a week across all platforms, with the Game of Thrones prequel being anointed as the biggest original in the 50-year history of the company. Nielsen said that if its live/same day measurement protocol were to be used for Dragon, its linear viewing on HBO would have contributed an additional 210 million minutes of viewing for the week.
There is a high degree of overlap between the two fantasy series, with 33% of House of the Dragon viewers also watching The Lord of The Rings, and 34% going in the reverse direction. Rings, Dragon and Cobra Kai are all atypical streaming fare in that they are all male-skewing. About 18% of Cobra Kai viewers are between the ages of 2 and 17 and 56% are 18-49 year-olds, according to Nielsen.
Elsewhere on the chart, Netflix’s The Crown shot up to the No. 5 spot amid the runup to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, netting 796 minutes of viewing.
Nielsen compiles the weekly ranking by gauging viewing only via a TV set (meaning no mobile) for Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Disney+ and Hulu, reporting figures after about a month’s delay.
Here’s the full top 10, with service, series/movie, number of episodes (“1″=film) and total minutes of streaming:
| Netflix | Cobra Kai | 50 | 1.918B |
| Prime Video | The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power | 4 | 988M |
| HBO Max | House Of The Dragon | 5 | 960M |
| Netflix | In The Dark | 51 | 825M |
| Netflix | The Crown | 40 | 796M |
| Netflix | Cocomelon | 18 | 785M |
| HBO Max | Game Of Thrones | 73 | 700M |
| Netflix | Sins Of Our Mother | 3 | 661M |
| Netflix | NCIS | 354 | 635M |
| Disney+ | Thor: Love And Thunder | 1 | 621M |