Early viewership numbers for the second season of Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout have come in, and they are significantly lower than for the first season. That first season was released all at once on the streamer, whereas this second season is being released weekly.
This has, according to The Hollywood Reporter, sparked a furious online argument.
All across fan sites and communities such as this one, observers are claiming this is because people are waiting until all episodes are available and that they can binge watch. Against this, streamers are seemingly moving away from the single drop release strategy, feeling that a weekly release leaves fans wanting more, and increases any show’s “impact window” and length of time it generates buzz.
The viewership stats seem to support the first viewpoint, with Nielsen reporting that for the week of December 15th-21st, Fallout pulled in 794 million viewing minutes on Prime Video that includes season one episodes that are available.
When the first series was single-dropped, it garnered 2.9 billion minutes of watch time in its first week in April 2024.
This is not, of course, a like-for-like comparison, but it has sparked a big online debate about the best release strategy and customer behaviour in the world of streaming.
Because this is the internet, and we are talking about very online people, there have been spirited debates across social media with the usual taking of sides and flaming of dissenters.
