Fallout seen by 65 million viewers, making it one of Prime Video's biggest shows ever

We're barely over two weeks out from the release of Fallout on Prime Video, and all signs indicate that the network has a major hit on its hands. Produced by Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's company Kilter Films and based on the beloved video game series by Bethesda Softworks and Interplay, Fallout is a wild, weird post-apocalyptic story that has captured viewers and critics alike. It currently holds a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Amazon has already renewed it for a second season.

Now we've got another exciting bench marker for how the show's doing: the official Fallout account on Twitter/X has announced that the series has been viewed by more than 65 million people in its first 16 days of availability. According to Variety, that makes Fallout "the second most-watched title ever on the platform and the most-watched title since the debut The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." And with a reported budget of $153 million, it cost quite a bit less than Rings of Power to boot.

As with any data put out by streaming services, this comes with caveats. Variety notes that we don't know precisely how Amazon defines a viewer. Are these people who turned in to Fallout for a few minutes, who finished an episode, or who watched the whole series? We don't know! Plus, the fact that Fallout released its entire first season at once makes comparing it to weekly releases like The Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time, The Boys or Reacher a little more complicated. I do think it's interesting that in the case of those weekly shows, Amazon has previously reported viewership in terms of minutes watched, but with Fallout is choosing to tell us how many viewers watched it. Who needs consistency in the age of digital television?

But no matter how you slice it, Fallout is a verifiable hit. The buzz around this show has been spectacular, and it's nice to see the numbers back it up.

A few other important pieces of data that Amazon has released: Fallout is the most-watched show on Prime ever among adults aged 18-34, and 60% of its audience lives outside of the United States. That could be a particularly big deal to Amazon, since they've been trying to capture more of the global market with shows like Citadel, which was originally conceived as a spy thriller that could have various sister shows based in different countries. According to Amazon, the UK, France and Brazil all represent major markets where Fallout has been especially well received by viewers.

Hopefully all this means that when Nolan and the rest of the team get back to work on Fallout season 2, Amazon gives them even more support this go-round. Here's to many adventures in the wasteland ahead!

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