The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerwas topping the Prime Video chart even before the debut of its second season’s premiere. However, new information revealed by Samba TV (viaDeadline) has suggested that the Tolkien fantasy’s return has been nowhere near as epic as its original Season 1 debut.
While Amazon has not yet revealed any official details about the viewership ofThe Rings of Power’s second season, Samba TV has become one of the best indicators of how a series is performing over its first few days on release. Based on their sample of 3 million households, the data released by the company has revealed thatThe Rings of Powerwas watched by 902,000 households in the U.S. across the first four days on Prime Video.
The Rings of Power
This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and takes viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
While this seems like a reasonably strong number, when given some context, it is around half the 1.8 million that tuned into Season 1’s debut episode across just three days back in 2022. Samba TV does not incorporate any data from those viewing on mobile devices, but the like-for-like data samples are enough to suggest that the series’ return has not been the must-watch event of its predecessor. With streaming platforms being unwilling to share much data about their shows and viewer numbers, it is likely that Nielsen’s streaming chart release in a few weeks will be the next time we see how the two seasons ofThe Rings of Powercompare.
Is The Rings of Power Losing Audience Interest Already?
Without a complete picture of viewer numbers, there is a lot of guesswork involved in working out whether the series has really dropped half of its audience season on season. Prior to the release of Season 2’s first three episodes,The Rings of Powershot to the top of Prime Video’s global chart, suggesting that there were many people returning to rewatch Season 1 before diving straight into the new episodes. However, if this is the case, there seems to be a lot of people who have not yet made it to Season 2.
Prime Video’s The Rings of Power Season 2 Big Budget Clashes with Audience Expectations
With an out-of-this-world budget, fans expected more from The Rings of Power Season 2.
Season 2 has not had the same amount of publicity swirling around its arrival, and the reviews have improved a lot for this season, removing the air of controversy that followed the initial episodes. While all is still not rosy in the gardens of Middle Earth as far as some die-hard Tolkien fans are concerned, the series is certainly not a failure in any way. Viewership is still above anything else on Prime Video, critics continue to heap praise on the lavish series, and evenaudiences have been much more impressed with Season 2to boot. All in all,The Rings of Powercontinues to make its mark in the streaming world, and with three more seasons reportedly planned to tell the story it set out to tell, it seems like the series is currently one of the safest bets to avoid cancelation of any streaming show.
The Rings of PowerSeason 2 continues with new episodes each Thursday on Prime Video
