Image: Outer Banks, Netflix
This week, the overall US demand chart reacted to a major announcement by a US network. On May 15th, The CW released their upcoming schedules. These schedules confirmed that among other titles, the next series of The Flash and Riverdale will now air in Spring 2021 and not in Fall 2020 as originally planned. The delay is due to the COVID-19 production shutdown, which has prevented filming on these series. Demand for The Flash rose 22.3% and demand for Riverdale rose 10.9% as fans reacted to and discussed this news.
Fans of The Flash were also remembering Logan Williams, who played young Barry Allen in the series. Williams died in early April at the age of 16. To raise awareness of the issue and help other youth in a similar situation, his family revealed to the media this week that Williams had died of an opiate addiction.
In other news, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is no longer the most demanded series in America. The Star Wars animation held the top spot for two weeks in the lead up to the series’ final episode on Disney+, released on May 4th. With the show now concluded, US demand dropped by 39.3% compared to last week. This takes demand for The Clone Wars below demand for chart perennial Spongebob Squarepants. The Nickelodeon series thus returns to the position of most demanded series.
However, Star Wars: The Clone Wars still handily dominates the digital original charts. Even with 39.3% less demand than last week, it still has 1.3x as much demand as the next most demanded series. Maintaining last week’s Star Wars dominance for a second week, that next most demanded series is fellow Disney+ title The Mandalorian. Rounding off the top three, there’s no movement for Netflix’s Stranger Things which remains at number three.
Netflix’s Lucifer is this week’s biggest riser in the digital original chart. Ranked 18th last week, the drama re-enters the top ten in 10th, gaining 18.8% more demand than last week. Season 4 of the show was released on DVD this week with the launch promoted by some deleted scenes.
Netflix’s Outer Banks also gained demand, growing by 6.2% from last week. Demand for the teen drama has been steadily rising since the show’s Apr 15th premiere, with this week’s rank of 5th the highest it has placed so far. This growth of demand is happening even with no new content: all episodes of Outer Banks were released on the same day. This is a demand pattern that often indicates that a show is growing due to positive word of mouth spreading beyond the initial fanbase.
