The internet is slightly abuzz with misjudgments. Fallout's viewership numbers for the first week of season two have been revealed thanks to a predictable appearance in the top 10 streamed originals category, and they're a hell of a lot smaller than what we saw in the first week of the season. one premiere. This does not bode well! Something went wrong! It was just fashion!
No, no and probably not, or There's an incredibly important piece of context that certain types of bad faith can inevitably overlook. Personally, I'm not even a big fan of the show, but this is bullshit, and it's worth setting the record straight before things get out of hand. Not that I think a lot of people will click on something I've written, but I'm doing my small part.
Context, people, context!
For about as long as streaming has existed as the dominant force in television, people have argued about whether a binge model (which means releasing every episode in a season at once) or a weekly model (a traditional approach that some consider outdated) is better. Many prefer the former; my old bones enjoy the other one.
The belief that the weekly drops are only there to get people to stay subscribed for a longer period of time is somewhat unfair in my opinion. That definitely plays a part, but having a week to digest each episode is pretty cool, and avoiding season-long spoilers like internet landmines is fantastic.
There's a reason for this tangent: the first season of Fallout took an over-the-top approach, but the second season currently airs every week. Nielsen, the decades-old ratings tracking company that has informed network and cable enthusiasts how well their favorite shows are doing for basically forever, has also gotten into streaming. And Fallout racked up a whopping 2.9 billion minutes of combined viewing in its debut week in 2024. What about the debut week of the second season? 794 minutes.
However, The Hollywood Reporter has the right to do so. It's an apples to oranges comparison. People binged the hell out of the first season, and they did so for nearly three billion minutes. Fallout's second season premiere was about a single episode. And while a lot of those minutes were dedicated to catching up with the first series, the fact remains that there was literally an eighth of new content to watch this time around. It is as high as a quarter of its predecessor says it all stability series.
We even have the details:
“Nearly 800 million minutes watched is still a healthy number, and Nielsen says the season two premiere accounted for 54 percent (about 429 million) of the total — suggesting that if Prime Video had released more episodes on Dec. 16, the number would have been significantly higher. The rest came from the first season, as Nielsen counts viewing of all streamed series.” -The Hollywood Reporter
I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. 794 million minutes is not a sign of failure. It's an assurance that the Prime Video sensation remains sensational. Don't let these clickbait videos tell you otherwise. We'll be watching the show perform for the rest of the season as those numbers come in, of course, but now? Peach.
If the Metacritic score wasn't enough, people are now bidding over $1,000 for a copy of Cora in the house
Shoutout to the person who bought a $30 copy of CIB about 36 hours ago.
