(L-R): Olega Padawan (Ed Kear), Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) and Osha (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm attempted to use access media outlet Variety to put a positive spin on initial viewership for Leslye Headland’s Star Wars: The Acolyte. However, financial analyst Valliant Renegade calls the numbers pathetic and explains that only around 3% of Disney+ subscribers tuned into the show.
Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Variety’s Selome Hailu wrote a headline that blared, “The Acolyte’ Reaches 4.8 Million Views in One Day, Biggest Disney+ Launch of 2024.”
She added, “An exact first-day viewership total isn’t available for “Ahsoka,” the most recent Star Wars series, though Disney did report that it took five days to reach 14 million views. That comes out to an average of 2.8 million viewers per day — 2 million below the launch of “The Acolyte.” (Note: a “view” is calculated by dividing the number of hours each title is watched by its runtime.)”
Mae (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Financial analyst Valliant Renegade reacted to this information and described it as “pathetic” and claimed that “Disney is trying to pull a fast one.”
He explained, “First of all, the views themselves. Remember, there were two episodes. So we’re talking about total runtime between what just the first episode or both episodes. We don’t know. They didn’t stipulate and came up with a viewership total.”
He continued, “The other part of the issue is, is that 4.8 million views does not stipulate from where or from what market that was derived. And when it comes to Disney+ if we go by what they’ve said in the past when they report Disney+ numbers for things like The Acolyte or for things like Ahsoka they’re talking about global views. They’re talking about Disney+ with its nearly 150 million subscriber reach around the globe. That means that basically less than say 3% of all Disney+ subscribers tuned in that Tuesday night to watch The Acolyte. They don’t stipulate U.S. like we know when we read reports from places like Nielsen or even Samba TV.”
Mae (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Next, he relayed, “But it actually gets worse. Let’s read that first sentence again: ‘The Acolyte, Disney+’s newest Star Wars series reached 4.8 million views in its first day of availability this marks the streamer’s biggest series premiere of 2024 thus far according to Disney.’ What other major competition has there been in terms of a series premiere on Disney+ since January 1st of 2024? There’s actually only one and that was Echo.”
“Now sure they had other things like X-Men ’97, but we’re talking about small potatoes kind of shows or just shows that were very poorly received. So I don’t know how beating these other animated series or very bad Marvel series that nobody watched, is this really something to tout that so far with virtually nothing else out there on the platform to speak of in terms of premieres since the beginning of the year that we we’re going to have to throw a party for this one right?”
Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Next, he compared the show to HBO Max’s House of the Dragon, “House of the Dragon much like The Acolyte is a very large budget show $200 million or so in that range at least in so far as what we know. But let’s look at what the actual viewership looks like for a seriously big hit show. This from 2022 following the season or series premiere I should say of House of the Dragon. 10 million viewers. 10 million. Twice as much as what Disney is reporting, but it gets worse.”
He went on, “The premiere of House of the Dragon drew 9.986 million viewers across linear that’s via cable and HBO Max streaming platforms in the U.S. Sunday night. Hold up. House of the Dragon turned in twice as much viewership as The Acolyte in that case just in the U.S. alone. The Acolyte’s numbers, again, if Disney is reporting in any consistency whatsoever they’re giving us total Disney+ views and that’s in the first 24 hours. 4.8 million views for The Acolyte globally in its first day, its first 24 hours or so on the platform versus 10 million views for the series premiere of House of the Dragon within a couple of hours on Sunday night.”
“Those numbers however are caveated saying typically Sunday night viewership for an HBO series will represent just 20 to 40% of the show’s total gross audience. And as we saw that number of about 10 million expanded to 25 to 30 million for that premiere episode within the first week and again that was just in the U.S. And here Disney is bragging about 4.8 million views in a similar time frame. Actually, I would say a significantly longer time frame some 12 to 18 hours longer than what would have been measured for House of the Dragon,” Valliant Renegade detailed.
(L-R, front row): Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) and Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
READ: Leslye Headland Confirms ‘The Acolyte’ Is The “Gayest Star Wars,” And Claims That R2-D2 Is A Lesbian
After going over how poorly the show is being received by audiences, Valliant Renegade predicted, “I think this show with that kind of word of mouth is going to struggle to get up to where Ahsoka was at 14 million, again, global views in its first six days or five days whatever it may have been. It doesn’t matter. It’s really not that impressive and it’s not that impressive because of what Disney spends on this.”
He explained, “Sure, 4.8 million global views for a $20 million documentary or a $50 million show or a100 million show even might not be so bad, but a $200 million massive investment in production, and they’ve probably spent I would bet another $50 to $100 million of Disney+ money promoting The Acolyte and not to mention the fact that this is a Star Wars connected property or at least a Disney Star Wars connected property.”
“This 4 8 million global views in the first 24 hours is absolutely pathetic,” he concluded.
(L-R): Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) and Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
On top of this analysis from Valliant Renegade, X user NowItsKnown notes that puff pieces such as this one from Variety declaring how well The Acolyte’s viewership is do not translate well to tracking data from company’s like Nielsen.
He notes, “Disney’s ‘Big Numbers’ press releases, don’t always translate into ‘Big Numbers’ viewership.” He shared a screenshot of a previous article touting Loki Season 2’s premiere allegedly bringing in 10.9 million views in three days. However, he also shared a screenshot of Nielsen noting the show only had viewership of 446 million minutes viewed for the first week it debuted.
#Disney‘s ‘Big Numbers’ press releases, don’t always translate into ‘Big Numbers’ viewership. #DisneyPlus@wdwpro @Kneon @KinelRyan @FloralIdunno @desert_starr_57 @CultureCasino @derekbwriting @ValliantRenegadhttps://t.co/TG6JvRk4sW pic.twitter.com/VP9zFoUu6A
— MAC (@NowItsKnown) June 7, 2024
What do you make of these numbers from Disney regarding The Acolyte’s viewership?
