Image: Saturday Night Live, NBC
As the first month of 2020 comes to a close, we can finally see some stability in the contest for most in-demand digital original in the US. For the third straight week, Disney+’s The Mandalorian, and Netflix’s The Witcher and Stranger Things are the top three most demanded digital originals in the US (in that order). Despite their relative rank holding steady, all three have experienced absolute declines in their demand since last week.
In the overall chart, The Mandalorian and The Witcher have been unseated by longstanding top ten residents Saturday Night Live and Spongebob Squarepants. On the one hand this switch was partially driven by the declining demand for the Disney+ and Netflix frontrunners. However, Saturday Night Live saw a nearly 50% jump in its demand this week. Whether it was choosing popular NFL player J.J. Watt to host on the eve of Super Bowl Sunday or a particularly fertile news cycle for parody, this week’s episode captured the attention of American audiences.
The Good Place had its series finale on January 30th. Demand for this show is up 21% from last week which has boosted the series from sixteenth place to number ten in our overall ranking.
Star Trek: Picard has made a splash since its debut on January 23rd. This week is its first in the top 10 digital originals in the US and it has more than doubled its average demand from last week. As a weekly release with only two episodes so far, we anticipate that demand for this CBS All Access digital original will continue to grow.
Two shows that have had opposite fortunes this week are DC Universe’s animated series Harley Quinn and Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Harley Quinn has been a regular contender in the top ten ranking since December last year. It slid four places to 10th place this week and had 11% less demand. It is on a weekly release schedule and has three episodes remaining in the season so will likely remain in the top ten until the season finale.
Part 3 of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was released on January 24th. This week the series jumped two places (up from 9th last week) and increased its demand by an impressive 71%.
Finally, Star Wars: The Clone Wars has maintained a relatively constant demand since last week. The trailer for the new season of the reboot was released January 22 – a month before it is set to premiere on Disney+. We will be watching this series to see if it continues its momentum and can enable Disney+ to keep Star Wars fans happy as demand for The Mandalorian subsides.
