The Mandalorian is by FAR the most in-demand show from the new streaming services
By Dan Selcke
New streaming services like Disney+, Apple TV+ and HBO Max are all trying to capture people’s attention, but only one series has unquestionably succeeded.
The Mandalorian came out day and date with Disney’s steaming service Disney+ last November, and it was an immediate hit. You all remember: the Baby Yoda memes alone were all the evidence we needed that this series was beloved.
Knowing that, it’s no surprise that data firm Parrot Analytics, which tracks social chatter about TV and movies, has published new findings that Disney’s first-ever live-action Star Wars show was by far the most in-demand new series to come out of the new crop of streaming services in the past nine months. “The Mandalorian is in a class of its own,” said Alejandro Rojas, director of applied analytics at Parrot.
When I say “the new crop of streaming services,” I mean the bunch that have popped up over the past several months to try and give members of the old guard like Netflix a fun for its month, stuff like Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max and NBC’s Peacock. All of them have released original shows, but it comes to shows people are actually talking about, nothing comes close to The Mandalorian:
Image: Parrot Analytics
The other streamers had some buzzy stuff, including Dickinson on Apple TV+ and the new Looney Toons Cartoons on HBO Max, but The Mandalorian is definitely a cut above. It’s helped to drive subscribers to Disney’s new service — there were 10 millions sign-ups in the first day and around 60 million now — and also, social chatter can be its own reward. “It goes beyond viewership and the traditional way of looking at the industry,” Rojas said. “It’s all about capturing people’s interest and connecting emotionally with the people so they see that show as part of their life.”
All that said, Disney+ has a ways to go if it wants to match the likes of Netflix, which has 193 million subscribers, when it comes to buzz. (Did you see how many Emmy nominations Netflix shows got? It’s a lot.) According to Parrot’s data, Netflix originals are still way more in demand, on average, than what other streamers are offering up, and that includes older services like Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. Netflix just has that much of a lead, and that big of a library.
The second season of The Mandalorian is set to come out this October, provided the coronavirus doesn’t throw a monkey wrench into things. The new episodes were shot before the worst of it, so in theory things should be okay, but the lockdowns and quarantines can affect post-production, too. Whenever it comes out, we badly wanna see it, because it looks like they have some big ideas for this show:
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