While Nielsen is still the gold standard when it comes to streaming charts, based on their long history of providing industry standard ratings for classic network tv, there are several new players who also have their own charts. There is Samba TV, who only gather data from users who use their app, then there’s Luminate, a somewhat more serious player, who, like Nielsen, try to gauge overall viewership by analyzing various sources, not just any one app.
And while Nielsen always have a four week delay, so the first results for Skeleton Crew should come very late December, Luminate release their charts in a much more timely fashion, i.e. usually on late Friday/early Saturday with the data for the previous 7 days. Which means Luminate already has data for the Skeleton Crew debut from earlier this week.
And it does not look all too good for the new Star Wars show. Click through for more.
Can he attract an audience next week?
As the headline already tells you Skeleton Crew is a no-show on the Luminate top 10 streaming charts for original shows. The number 10 show is The Day of the Jackal with 332.3 million minutes streamed.
Which means we can only guess how Skeleton Crew performed, we only know it must have had fewer than 332.3 million minutes.
To compare things The Acolyte was on the Luminate charts in week 1, but with a measly 210 million minutes. In week 2 this number rose to 380.5 million minutes.
So it is perfectly possible that many people will catch up with the show only this weekend and that next week the numbers will be much improved.
Of course there is also the possibility that Skeleton Crew will have its very own Solo: A Star Wars Story moment. That movie (among other reasons) crashed and burned also as a result of the The Last Jedi backlash. And The Acolyte certainly angered many fans and may have even turned them away from Star Wars.
On the plus side, and as a sign of hope for Skeleton Crew, the reception by both fans and the usual YouTube folks who talk about all things Star Wars has been almost universally positive, where almost everyone says it’s just “good fun”. So maybe the positive word of mouth will convince more people to tune in.
But if not… Lucasfilm made their own bed and should Skeleton Crew fail, despite a mostly positive reaction by the people who actually watch it, they only have themselves to blame.
On the other hand there could still be a somewhat happy ending for a really bad 2024 for Lucasfilm should Skeleton Crew find more viewers in the next weeks. We will know more next Saturday! I will keep you updated, as usual.
