Nielsen Announces Ratings for Orange Is the New Black, Seinfeld
Netflix and other online services don't reveal ratings for any of their programming, but now that the online measurement companies are developing tools to measure connected TV and mobile streaming, that's no longer an issue.
In a story broken by the Wall Street Journal, Nielsen revealed some streaming ratings yesterday at its Consumer 360 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. While Nielsen's ratings are shared confidentially with studio clients, the studios agreed to widely release data on three shows that are doing well.
The fourth season of Orange Is the New Black debuted on Netflix on July 17, and the premiere episode was watched by 6.7 million people over the opening 3-day period. Additionally, 5,9 million watched the second episode. That gives the show the equivalent viewing numbers of a highly-watched cable program. Orange is a Lions Gate production.
Seinfeld reruns on Hulu were watched by 706,000 people in the U.S. in the first five days they were available.
Nielsen also revealed data about the makeup of those viewers: Streamers are younger than the traditional TV audience. For example, 24 percent of the cable audience for Better Call Saul is between 18 and 34, while 44 percent of the streaming audience is. Better Call Saul is produced by Sony Pictures Television.
Nielsen is using audio fingerprinting to track viewing in a panel of 40,000 U.S. homes, and is only doing so for shows requested by studios. In its presentation, Nielsen noted that 52 percent of U.S. homes now access a video streaming service.
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