Nielsen data shows binging for Netflix’s ‘Lost in Space’

By David Bauder, The Associated Press

NEW YORK, N.Y. – An estimated 6.3 million people saw the premiere of Netflix’s “Lost in Space” within the first three days that the streaming service made it available this month, a promising start that would make it one of the outlet’s more popular series after the phenomenon of “Stranger Things.”

The Nielsen company is starting to draw the curtain back on some of the user numbers for streaming services, which have been reluctant to do so on their own.

“We’ve had a lot of anxiety among our clients about sharing this data with you,” said Brian Fuhrer, senior vice-president of product leadership for Nielsen, on Tuesday, “because they’re still learning it.”

Nielsen’s data also shows the impact of binging: the average “Lost in Space” viewer watched the show for two and a half hours on those first few days. Netflix released 10 separate one-hour episodes of the show on April 13 and, within three days, nearly 1.2 million people watched the last episode, a clear indication they’d seen the whole season.

Roughly 10 per cent of the total time spent watching television now is spent with streaming services, Nielsen said. The number approaches one-quarter of all viewing among viewers aged 12 to 17. Netflix dominates, with 49 per cent of the streaming viewing coming on their service. YouTube’s 10 per cent is the second-highest individual service, Nielsen said.

For all of the attention that new series put on by the streaming services gets, Nielsen said that 80 per cent of the viewing goes to older programs like “Friends.”

Four years ago, 88 per cent of television viewing came on cable or satellite. Now that number is down to 79 per cent, an indication of the impact of cord cutting, Nielsen said.

On the broadcast networks last week, ABC’s “Roseanne” was again the week’s most-watched show.

CBS easily won the week in prime time, averaging 6.7 million viewers. NBC had 4.8 million viewers, ABC had 4.4 million, Fox had 3 million, Univision had 1.6 million, ION Television had 1.3 million, the CW had 1.2 million and Telemundo had 1.1 million.

TNT was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 3.06 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.37 million, MSNBC had 1.94 million, HGTV had 1.35 million and ESPN had 1.3 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.5 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.9 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6 million viewers.

For the week of April 16-22, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “Roseanne,” ABC, 13.27 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 12.91 million; “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 11.67 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 11.44 million; “Bull,” CBS, 10.83 million; “The Voice” (Monday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 9.35 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 9.02 million; “Mom,” CBS, 8.83 million; “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 8.46 million; “The Voice” (Wednesday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 8.39 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.

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