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Early viewership numbers for the second season of Amazon Prime Video’s “Fallout” TV series have started coming in and have quickly sparked debates online about the show’s sophomore viewership and its format change this year.
The first season was released as a binge watch with all eight episodes dropping at once in April 2024. For the second season, Amazon switched to a weekly format with one episode a week starting December 16th last year and is still ongoing through to February 4th.
Reasons for such a switch are obvious – it could potentially generate more conversation about the show, and keeps subscribers attached for longer. However, that doesn’t appear to have panned out.
On social media, discussion about the new season seems pointedly less than the weeks following the release of the first season. Now, viewership stats are being released for the first two episodes and there’s debate about the numbers which are significantly smaller.
Third-party platformer Nielsen reported that for the week of December 15th-21st, the series pulled in 794 million viewing minutes on Prime Video. That figure is across all eight season one episodes and the season two premiere episode. Of that number, 429 million of those minutes were for that season premiere for its six days of availability.
In comparison, the first season pulled in 2.9 billion minutes of watch time in its first week back in April 2024. Of course, that is across all eight episodes of the first season released simultaneously and over the span of its first five days, not six.
In the second week of the second season, “Fallout” pulled in 918 million viewing minutes across the first season and two second-season episodes with 395 million minutes coming from that new Season 2 Episode 2 release. In comparison, the first season’s eight episodes pulled in 2.62 billion minutes of watch time in its second week in 2024.
Amazon, which has access to more detailed statistics (but also potential bias) says the second season is already Prime Video’s No. 6 most-watched season of all time after its first four weeks – behind only the first season, the second and third seasons of “Reacher” and the first and second seasons of “The Rings of Power”.
They add that the second season is the No. 4 most-watched returning season to date and the top season on Prime Video since “Reacher” Season 3 a year ago. Season 2 also ranks among the top 5 most-watched TV seasons among men 18-34 on Prime Video to date.
Amazon also indicates the series viewership is 53% international, with strong numbers in the UK, Germany, and Brazil. However, they have not disclosed official viewership figures for the season and are expected to wait until the season ends before making a decision about revealing the data. A potential bump from those waiting to binge-watch is expected in the first few weeks of February.
The numbers so far have led to arguments among the fandom about whether the switch to weekly has been better for the show with various social media posts taking sides and flaming those who disagree.
Source: THR
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