News Discovery is officially 5th most-watched Netflix show in the UK

Direct from the horse's mouth, Discovery was the 5th most-watched show on Netflix in the UK last month.

https://twitter.com/netflixuk/status/1126434287375536128?s=21

 

My response is not going to be the one you think... or the one I thought when I first opened this thread and clicked on that link. Great that so many people watch Disco in the UK, but...

... wow. I looked at the rest of the link and I didn't know they made a movie out of Baywatch. Yet, at the same time, I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner.

 

That's great, I hope. I'm surprised it was beaten by Sabrina and Riverdale, a slumping show that has been getting only about 800,000 viewers in the U.S. But Sabrina and Riverdale make the overall UK top 10, films included, so that has to be good, right? Maybe Riverdale's more popular there than at home.

Santa Clarita Diet is at No. 8, three slots below Discovery, and it just got canned, so it's hard to know how much to read into this.

 

I'm just excited when anyone anywhere gets into Trek to any degree, 5th place, 50th place or whatever. But this is cool news.

 

UK ratings might be good for Santa Clarita Diet, but not worldwide. I can only think of 1 show where Netflix UK is the only reason it was renewed, and that's Designated Survivor.

 

Regarding Santa Clarita Diet, from what I've read a lot of Netflix shows (so not stuff bought for Netlix, like say Friends) are likely to face cancellation after the third season because the contracts Netflix has with creators involve significant bonuses to be paid out once a show hits season 4. We are (allegedly) talking about a jump from several hundred thousands to several millions. And that's on top of carrying the production costs. So unless it's a massive hit, Netflix just ends it.

 

Netflix also no longer has the benefit of having the entire market to itself.

 

The OA was envisioned as a 5 season show from its plan, from what i gather but it's development and rollout has been a bit askew from some Netflix shows. if it gets a 3rd season I will be curious to see if it follows that same pattern.

 

This is pretty much expected, but at least it's verifiable information from Netflix itself about how many people watch the show - unlike the "Parrot Analytics" claim that it's the number one streaming show in the world, which is just marketing pooh-bah for their attempts to divine useful viewer data from social media.

 

Is that good?

I hardly watch any TV and haven't heard of the other shows in the list. Are they considered to have big followings? Do any of them have budgets approaching that of Disco?

 

Pretty sure those analytics were for one week in April. I don't think anyone's saying it's the #1 streaming show in the world, full stop.

 

*in April

But 5th place for a month is nothing to scoff at. And this is the first time we have (kinda') verifiable metrics! So that's pretty good. Also, I need to check out Sabrina some time...

 

It's good, but not great. Sabrina, that is. Definitely looking forward to more of it. Not as much as I'm looking forward to more Trek, or Lost in Space though. But probably more than more Stranger Things.

This. It already has, and the third series will just be a shared delusion of anyone claiming to have seen it

 

Riverdale is a cheap CW show which got on average about 1 million viewers last season.
https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/cw-2018-19-season-ratings/
I guess they have 20 - 30 % of the budget of DIS for an episode.

I don't know anything about the other series in front of DIS.

 

The show isn't "cheap", it's just not as big as a modern sci-fi series. Also its viewership is more than 1 million, as it has strong as heck delayed and streaming numbers. Hence it having two spinoffs and the showrunner getting $100M+ salaries.

 

CBS still considers it reliable.

 

CBS considers the Star Trek brand reliable. Currently, DIS is the standard-bearer. They're not going to axe their flagship show. But the fact that they're retooling it again also implies the actual numbers - whatever they may be - where below expectations. Which can also be the result of unrealistic expectations *cough Beyond *cough

But in general, every show where people have to tell everyone how it's the biggest, most watched Nr. 1 show, and have to rely on really obscure and indirect sources for that claim - simply isn't. Doesn't mean it's not successfull mind you.