The Witcher season 3 opens weaker, ratings slip as episodes go on

The first season of The Witcher, adapted from the books by Andrzej Sapkowski, remains one of the most successful seasons of TV in the history of Netflix. The second season performed well, too, netting more than one million viewers for all eight of its episodes in their first week of availability, according to TV analytics firm Samba TV.

The third season dropped late last week, and while the numbers are still solid, the show is slipping. The season premiere was watched by around 1.1 million households, which is good, but it’s still down 15% from the season 2 premiere. And viewership has decreased with every subsequent episode. The full list looks like this:

• Episode 1: 1.1 million viewers
• Episode 2: 893k viewers
• Episode 3: 760k
• Episode 4: 602k
• Episode 5: 505k

The final three episodes of the season will drop on Netflix on July 27.

Generally speaking, we haven’t been huge fans of The Witcher here at WiC, although our esteemed critic Daniel Roman thinks this latest season is the show’s best outing so far. I haven’t watched all the episodes yet, but I do find that this season is going down easier than the first two. But after an especially divisive second season and a widely panned spinoff series, I’m not shocked that fewer people are tuning in this time.

Avatar: The Way of Water tops the charts in streaming debut

When it comes to ratings data, we should note that Samba TV isn’t quite as reliable and respected as Nielsen, which hasn’t weighed in on The Witcher yet. Nielsen did just release its streaming chart for the second week in June, though, and Avatar: The Way of Water — which debuted on both Disney+ and Max — easily topped it. Per Deadline:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water — Disney+/Max, 1.941 billion minutes watched
2. Manifest — Netflix, 1.628 billion minutes
3. S.W.A.T. — Hulu/Netflix/Paramount+, 1.257 billion minutes
4. Never Have I Ever — Netflix, 917 million minutes watched
5. FUBAR — Netflix, 819 million minutes
6. Heartland — Hulu/Netflix/Peacock, 795 million minutes
7. Bluey — Disney+, 738 million minutes
8. NCIS — Netflix/Paramount+, 698 million minutes
9. Ted Lasso — Apple TV+, 641 million minutes
10. All American — Netflix, 625 million minutes

What are you streaming these days? Have you found yourself less interested in The Witcher than before, assuming you were ever interested in the first place?

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h/t Deadline