In an attempt to draw more audience interest in the third season of its fantasy drama “The Witcher,” Netflix opted to split its season in two, with the first part having been released a week ago on June 29th.
The move appears to have had the opposite effect as according to L+5D data from Samba TV which measures approximately 3 million connected households (and doesn’t measure mobile).
The new season has seen a 15% decrease in people who sampled those first five episodes – dropping from 1.3 million to 1.1 million U.S. households from the 3 million who tuned in to the first episode.
In addition, by the time of the fifth episode, less than half the premiere audience stuck around, with 505,000 U.S. households having stuck with it in the first few days.
Compare that to all eight episodes of the second season, drawing more than one million U.S. households during their first week of streaming in December 2021.
Netflix itself reported that the first five episodes of the third season drew 15.2 million views (73 million viewing hours divided by a 289-minute runtime) in its first weekend on the platform. The second half of the third season is set to drop on Netflix on July 27th.
The reasons for such a drop are numerous. There’s the general loss in interest with new seasons. Some could be holding off on tuning in until the season is complete. Some could be protesting the exit of Henry Cavill after this season and/or dismissing the series following online speculation conveying ehind-the-scenes turmoil.
The first season remains one of Netflix’s most popular TV seasons of all time.
Source: Deadline
