Rings Of Power Loses Ratings Battle To Netflix True Crime Series
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuted its second season on August 29, marking the return of Amazon Prime Video’s biggest show for their streaming service. They released the first three episodes of the show, with the remainder to be doled out over the next couple of weeks. However, viewership numbers have already come out, and in what is likely alarming news for Amazon, Rings of Power is losing out to the Netflix true crime documentary series Worst Ex Ever.
A Massive Fantasy Series Can’t Beat True Crime
In a roundup of the streaming ratings for the week of August 30 through September 5, The Rings of Power had 764.7 million minutes watched based on the three episodes that were available at the time. Those are certainly enviable numbers for most shows, but given the name recognition The Lord of the Rings has as one of the most beloved fantasy franchises of all time, Amazon likely was hoping to crack a billion in minutes watched.
And if that sounds unreasonably high, Worst Ex Ever nearly did it.
Another True Crime Hit
Worst Ex Ever placed at number one on the week’s streaming rankings, bringing in 939.1 million minutes watched for its four episodes available. To be fair, that does mean the show had one extra episode available compared to The Rings of Power, but Worst Ex Ever also would have had far less marketing and word of mouth to help build traction for the show.
Rings Of Power Is One Of The Most Expensive Shows Of All Time
The Rings of Power was infamously revealed to be one of the most expensive TV shows ever made when the hype was being built up for the show’s first season back in 2022. Given that type of investment, Amazon clearly had very high expectations for the Lord of the Rings brand to be a huge success for them. While the show did bring in substantial viewers, critics and audiences alike were lukewarm on the actual show, feeling it was incongruent with much of the established Tolkien lore.
A Disappointing Start To Season 2
However, for The Rings of Power’s second season to now be taking second place to a far less expensive docuseries like Worst Ex Ever has to be especially disappointing for Amazon. Given how much Amazon has invested in the series, they no doubt want to be in competition with the year’s biggest shows. But Worst Ex Ever is not the type of show that would cost much to make, and it is also not the type of show that would receive critical acclaim or get branded as prestige television.
Rings Of Power Is Getting Better
The second season of The Rings of Power will ultimately have eight episodes in total when it is finished being fully released in October, so the number of minutes watched will certainly continue to climb. However, for the show’s big return after two years away, Amazon likely expected season two to enter with more of a bang.
Further compounding problems is that the second season of The Rings of Power is also continuing to get middling reviews. Critics praise the obvious budget the show has, but some still find the show uninteresting and feel it deviates too far from the ethos of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novels. However, with the season only about halfway through its release, perhaps it will end with more of an impact than it began.
Source: Variety
