Over the weekend the figures came out for Ahsoka via a third-party analytics company. They were, as we discussed here, not strong. Disney has now taken the unprecedented step of coming directly out with a challenger position to these figures and claimed that the viewership was, in fact, far higher. This is very unusual. The news must have hit a nerve at the troubled entertainment behemoth, as streamers are notoriously guarded with their viewing figures.
They have dropped a press release directly opposing the rumored soft opening. According to their statement, the Rosario Dawson-led Star Wars series had 14 million views worldwide in the five days after the first two episodes were released on the platform.
According to those in the know, Disney+ is using “The Netflix Method” to calculate their figure. Total viewing time / episode run time = number of views.
This means each household counts as a single view, even if there was a whole family in the room together. This means that out there in the world 784 million minutes of Ahsoka were watched to make those 14 million views.
As per our context from the earlier article, Extraction 2 had 129 million views. With 147 million subscribers on Disney+ this means around 9% of subscribers gave Ahsoka a viewing. In the statement, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said:
“Ahsoka has become a fan favorite with people of all ages, and it’s wonderful to see her continue to resonate with viewers in her very own headlining series. I want to recognize the fantastic work done by our creative team, led by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, the incredible cast led by Rosario Dawson, and our talented crew – and on behalf of the team and all of Lucasfilm, we give our thanks to all the fans who have been with Ahsoka on every step of her journey and to all those who are just learning about her now in Ahsoka on Disney+.”
This is the first time Disney+ has released any real viewing data. This is a clear sign that they understand platform performance is one of many things tied to their under-pressure share price performance and they are paying attention to the chatter.
Check back every day for movie news and reviews at the Last Movie Outpost
