Image: Star Trek: Picard, Paramount+
For the week of January 28 - February 03, Spongebob Squarepants took back the throne from Saturday Night Live with 76.8 times the average series demand after an 11% increase led to the animated series surging up to the top position once again. The spike in demand for the perennially popular show came after a new platform game titled ‘SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake’ released on January 31st, much to the excitement of fans across U.S. and global markets. While demand for Saturday Night Live actually saw a minor increase this week as well, the show moved down to second place to make way for Spongebob.
Barring a few outliers that had a minor increase, most other shows in the overall top ten chart actually had a decline in demand despite some upward movement in ranking this week. While Game of Thrones held on to its position in third place, the show had an 8% decline in demand, falling to 61.7 times the demand average in the U.S. Meanwhile, The Walking Dead and Stranger Things (the only streaming original in this ranking for the week) both had a similar decline in demand (-6%) but still moved up to fourth and fifth place respectively.
After an eventful past couple of weeks, demand for Rick and Morty fell sharply (-21%) this week, placing it eighth in the ranking with 49.8 times the average series demand. As mentioned last week, the series had seen an increase in demand as fans were weighing in on the fate of the series as Adult Swim severed ties with Rick and Morty’s co-creator. Rounding out the overall shows ranking we see AMC’s Breaking Bad back in the ranking in tenth place (up from its position in twelfth place last week), not due to any major increase, but due to other shows in the ranking sliding off as a result of greater decline in demand.
Among the streaming originals ranking, the top four positions remained unchanged this week with Stranger Things, The Mandalorian, Wednesday and The Witcher all holding on to their positions in that order despite seeing a drop in demand across the U.S. market.
The highest (and only) increase in demand among the top ten original shows was observed for Paramount+’s Star Trek: Picard this week. The series had an impressive 41% surge which led it to break into the rankings and take fifth place on the chart this week. This bodes well for the show, considering that this level of increased interest in Picard comes over a week ahead of its season three premiere. Paramount’s decision to have a “world premiere” of a new trailer during the AFC Championship game on January 30 definitely seemed to have the intended effect: Picard is now at the forefront of U.S. audiences’ minds, with 33.2 times more demand than the average series this week.
Rounding out the streaming originals ranking we see Netflix’s Cobra Kai slide down the chart to ninth place this week as audiences turned their attention elsewhere. The show had 25.9 times the average series demand this week, a 29% drop compared to last week. In tenth place we see Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale back in the rankings with 25.4 times the average series demand. It’s impressive that the show has managed to maintain an almost consistent level of demand among U.S. audiences since its last episode aired on November 09 last year.
