Image: Stranger Things, Netflix
This week, November 6 - 12, Spongebob Squarepants remained the most in-demand series in the US with 70.2 times the average series demand. While Saturday Night Live held onto its second place spot from last week, demand for the series was up by 10.7% this week. Kieran Culkin hosted last week’s episode on the back of a highly in-demand recent season of Succession and Ed Sheeran was the musical guest. High anticipation for this week’s musical guest, Taylor Swift also likely helped lift demand for the show this week.
Demand for Sesame Street was up by nearly 30% this week. This follows an episode where Big Bird received his COVID vaccine. Also boosting excitement for the show, Billie Eilish shared a music video of her singing “Happier Than Ever” with the Count in advance of her episode scheduled to be released in January. In an interesting overlap between two of this
week’s most in-demand shows, Saturday Night Live parodied Ted Cruz’s criticism of Big Bird’s vaccine in the show’s opening sketch this week. If the popularity of Sesame Street this week is any indicator, demand for SNL should continue to be high next week.
The Simpsons was 40.6 times more in-demand than the average series this week, a 7% increase from last week. It also moved up two places in overall ranking of shows. The first of a two-part episode, A Serious Flanders, aired on November 7th and sneak peaks for part 2 were released on November 9th. This is only the fourth two-part episode in the show’s long history.
Among digital originals, Stranger Things was the most in-demand, with 52.1 times the average series demand for the week. Demand for the show shot up by an incredible 45% following multiple drops related to the long-awaited season 4. On November 6, Netflix released the latest trailer for the show and the nine episode titles for the upcoming season for fans to puzzle over. Perhaps disappointingly however, it was announced that the new season would not premiere until summer 2022.
Almost as impressive of an increase, demand for Animaniacs was up by 39% this week. The show’s second season premiered on November 5th. Hulu has had a string of successes recently – Only Murders in the Building, Nine Perfect Strangers, and Y: The Last Man. The successful season 2 premiere of Animaniacs along with upcoming return seasons like The Great bodes well for the platform, which recently increased its price in October.
Rounding out the ten most in-demand digital originals this week is Young Justice from HBO Max. It had 23.4 times the average series demand. The animated series premiered its fourth season on October 16th and is scheduled to continue releasing episodes through December 30th.
