According to the Hollywood Reporter article The most expensive TV series of all time may have dropped further than we think. According to a recent report, the majority did not finish until the first season of the Lord of the Rings series, which cost $ 450 million and was presented last year. In other words, even though Amazon spent an incredible amount of money to get its over-the-top production, a large percentage of viewers didn’t even watch all of the episodes, which supports the fact that the series’ quality left a lot to be desired.
This information is also interesting because Amazon proudly claimed that 25 million people watched the first episode last fall, and boasted a total of 100 million views. It’s important to note that unlike TV viewing, streaming viewing is less controllable, with companies practically saying what they want based on their own measurements.
That’s why it’s so frustrating that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, only 37 percent of viewers in the US went so far as to finish the entire season of The Rings of Power after the first episode, even though it’s only 8 episodes long. The situation is a little better all over the world, but even there, less than half of the viewers, 45%, decided to watch the entire season. While streaming providers don’t really disclose how many people are watching a given season, according to the report, Amazon expected at least 50% up front, and they wouldn’t be completely satisfied with that either. In comparison, 37% could be considered a huge mistake for the most expensive TV series in the world.
According to the generally reliable Nielsen, the series was the 15th most popular production to stream in 2022, which is also not a great feat for such an expensive series, especially since the top 10 spots were netlfix exclusives – though Amazon Prime Video It is already more popular in America, like Netflix. It probably didn’t help The Rings of Power that new episodes were released every week at a time when House of Dragons was running simultaneously on HBO, and the Andor Star Wars and She-Hulk Marvel series were running on Disney.
