‘The Boys’ tops streaming rankings, beats ‘House of the Dragon’

Photo from Amazon MGM Studios

HOLLYWOOD – The fourth-season finale of “The Boys” enabled the Prime Video satirical superhero series to have its most-watched week and lead the weekly streaming rankings.

Viewers spent 1.328 billion minutes watching the 32 episodes of “The Boys” between July 15 and July 21, according to figures released Thursday by Nielsen. Its fourth-season finale was released July 18.

“The Boys” has topped the 1-billion-minutes-watched mark for each week of its fourth season and eighth time overall, the most among Prime Video titles. This was the first time “The Boys” had topped the weekly streaming rankings.

The previous high for “The Boys” was 1.291 billion minutes the week of June 10-16, when the season’s first three episodes were released.

Nielsen has released weekly streaming figures since January 2020.

The previous week’s leader, the Max “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon,” dropped one spot to second with 1.107 billion minutes watched of its 16 episodes, 13% less than the 1.273 billion minutes watched of 15 episodes the previous week.

Netflix’s release of the first five episodes of “Cobra Kai” made the sequel to the 1984 film “The Karate Kid,” one of three titles on the latest top 10 that was not on the previous week’s, placing third with 1.085 billion minutes watched of its 55 episodes.

The 2023 animated jukebox musical comedy film “Trolls Band Together” was watched for 937 million minutes during its first seven days on Netflix, ninth for the week.

The war film “Land of Bad” was watched for 848 million minutes in the first four days it was available on Netflix, 10th for the week.

Two other titles were watched for more than 1 billion minutes.

The dating series “Love Island,” which streams on Hulu, Netflix and Peacock, was fourth with 1.051 billion minutes watched of its 209 episodes.

The Australian animated preschool television series “Bluey,” which streams on Disney+, was fifth with 1.035 billion minutes watched.

Dropping out of the top 10 were the 2006-13 Showtime crime drama “Dexter,” which streams on Netflix and Paramount+; the Netflix action comedy film “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F”; and the 2020-23 Showtime crime drama, “Your Honor,” which streams on Netflix and Paramount+.

There were three titles in the top 10 that stream exclusively on Netflix; one each on Netflix, Hulu and Peacock, Netflix and Hulu and Netflix and Peacock; and one each that stream exclusively on Prime Video, Max, Disney+ and Hulu.

Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Apple TV+, Paramount+ and Starz programming.

The top 10 consisted of five acquired programs, three original streaming series and two movies.

The top 10 programs were “The Boys”; “House of the Dragon”; “Cobra Kai”; “Love Island”; “Bluey”; “Family Guy”; “Grey’s Anatomy”; “Trolls Band Together”; “Suits”; and “Land of Bad.”

The figures reflect only television set viewing, including such television-connected devices as Roku and Apple TV. Mobile-only viewing is not included in Nielsen’s streaming measurement systems.

While Nielsen releases weekly prime-time broadcast and cable ratings two days after the end of the week, except for holidays, viewership figures for streaming services are not released until 25 days after the end of the week because it takes more time to completely capture assets to report and aggregate streaming viewing, according to Nielsen. (CNS)