The battle imposed upon “House of the Dragon” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” by Hollywood may be over — for now — but Nielsen has released new findings about the habits of both shows’ streaming viewership throughout their respective first seasons that are sure to reignite the ratings “duel.”
First, Nielsen released some data Thursday regarding the ages of “House of the Dragon” and “The Rings of Power” audiences, and how many people that watch one show watch the other.
Per Nielsen’s findings:
- 35% of ‘HOTD’ viewers were aged 18-34
- 42% of ‘LOTR:TROP’ viewers were over 50
- 40% of ‘HOTD’ viewers also watched ‘LOTR:TROP’
- 35% of ‘LOTR:TROP’ viewers also watched ‘HOTD’
Additionally, the Nielsen-provided data appears to show more rises for “House of the Dragon” than “Rings of Power.” But here is where it’s important to keep in mind that HBO’s “House of the Dragon” airs both on the HBO linear channel and streams on HBO Max, while Amazon’s “The Rings of Power” is exclusively a streaming series on Prime Video, and the fact “House of the Dragon” launched two weeks before “Rings of Power” debuted its two-episode premiere.
Running the weeks of Aug. 15-Oct. 10, a time period that begins with the “House of the Dragon” premiere on Aug. 21 and goes through the “Rings of Power” finale on Oct. 24, the below chart displays six times that the “Game of Thrones” ticked up in streaming viewership (minutes watched) over its first nine episodes of a 10-episode season. In comparison, “Rings of Power” dropped off in time spent viewing four weeks in a row before making a strong rise in its final two weeks.
However, “The Lord of the Rings” series had higher overall streaming viewership compared to “House of the Dragon” week to week, with the exception of the week of Sept. 19. And, again, this is limited to only the streaming viewers for “House of the Dragon,” not the HBO subscribers who watched the show on the pay-TV channel.
In order to make the fairest comparison between the two shows’ first-season runs, we’ll need the final two weeks of “House of the Dragon” Season 1 viewership, which Nielsen will release in the coming weeks, based on its month-out schedule for streaming data.
See Nielsen’s chart plotting “Rings of Power” vs. “House of the Dragon” streaming viewership below.
