Two weeks after the July 26 debut of The Boys on Amazon’s Prime Video, the company distributed a press release touting the show as “one of its most watched series ever.”
Missing from that release: any actual viewing figures, as streaming platforms generally do not publicly share audience data. Now, thanks to Nielsen’s SVOD Content Ratings, there’s a number to put to Amazon’s claim.
The ratings service has added Amazon to its SVOD measurement, which will allow Nielsen clients to track the performance of shows that air on Prime Video. The Boys, which Sony Pictures Television produces with Amazon Studios, averaged 4.1 million viewers per episode over the first 10 days of its release — a far cry from the performance of, say, Netflix’s hit Stranger Things, but a good distance ahead of the final season of House of Cards.
Nielsen says the premiere episode of The Boys drew a bit over 6 million viewers in its first 10 days, and 8 million viewers watched at least a few minutes of the series.
The Nielsen SVOD ratings measure the audience watching on TV sets only in the United States. Multi-platform and international viewing would push the totals higher.
“Nielsen’s measurement in the SVOD space is invaluable for our studio to understand how our programs perform on these platforms and the audiences they attract,” said James Petretti, senior vp research and analytics at Sony Pictures TV. “It becomes even more exciting for us, because Nielsen has the ability to help us understand what these audiences are doing outside of those platforms as well — how and what they are watching on other on-demand and linear services. We are also able to understand the impact of traditional linear advertising driving viewers to these SVOD programs, so what Nielsen is providing is extraordinarily compelling.”
The Boys comes from executive producers Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and is based on the Garth Ennis-Darick Robertson comic book title. Amazon renewed the series for a second season ahead of its premiere.
