‘Ahsoka’ Finale Viewership Clocks In Worse Than ‘Andor’ That Was “Chasing The Audience”
John F. Trent
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The latest streaming data from Nielsen reveals that Ahsoka’s finale had worse viewership than Andor.
Ray Stevenson as Baylan Skoll and Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati in Ahsoka (2023), Lucasfilm
Nielsen released their streaming data for the week of October 2-8 — the eighth episode of Ahsoka aired on October 3rd — and it shows that Lucasfilm’s Ahsoka series only brought in 575 million minutes.
As noted by X user MAC this is nearly 100 million minutes less than Andor’s finale, which racked up 674 million minutes during its finale week between November 21-27, 2022.
As anticipated #Ahsoka‘s season finale came in under #Andor‘s by 99Mil Mins.#Disney #DisneyPlus #StarWars@wdwpro1 @ValliantRenegad @KinelRyan @JonasJCampbell @Nerdrotics @GeeksGamersCom @BoundingComics pic.twitter.com/v6bpGMda3k
— MAC (@NowItsKnown) November 2, 2023
Even if one does a simple calculation dividing total minutes by the run time, Andor still outperforms Ahsoka. The season finale of Ahsoka had a run time of 49 minutes. That would mean around 11.7 million people watched the season finale.
As for Andor, it’s runtime clocked in at 57 minutes. That would mean 11.8 million people tuned into the Andor season finale.
(L-R): Imperial Officer (Jolyon Coy) with Stormtroopers and Young Cassian Andor (Lucas Bond) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
However, this calculation is a little bit simplistic and actual viewership is a lot more complicated. It’s safe to assume that most viewers do not watch all the episodes. Disney+ even allows viewers to skip a recap for the episodes.
Episodes also include between 5 and 10 minutes of credits at the end of each episode and it’s likely many viewers skip watching them. Obviously, that would mean viewership might actually be higher if you cut out that run time.
(L-R): Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) with howlers in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved
As noted, it’s still complicated because Nielsen does not just track single episodes, but tracks all episodes of the entire show even previous seasons. In this case, Andor and Ahsoka do not have previous seasons so we do not need to worry about that.
But we do have to factor in viewers rewatching the episode as well as viewers who binge watch an entire series after it has been completed. That would mean the total viewership would be quite a bit less than the 11.7 million and 11.8 million viewers based on the simple total minutes divided by runtime calculation.
Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren in Ahsoka (2023), Lucasfilm
It’s nearly impossible to figure out what the exact numbers are given the way viewership is tracked. And that’s likely done on purpose to obfuscate how poor viewership on streaming truly is.
What we do have are comments from Andor creator Tony Gilroy, who admitted that the show’s audience was not very robust.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: Tony Gilroy arrives at the special 3-episode launch event for Lucasfilm’s original series Andor at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on September 15, 2022. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
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Gilroy informed Variety, “I think I was surprised. I thought the show would go the other way, that we would have this gigantic, instantaneous audience that would just be everywhere, but that it would take forever for non-‘Star Wars’ people or critics or my cohort of friends to get involved in the show.”
“The opposite happened. We ended up with all this critical praise, all this deep appreciation and understanding from really surprising number of sources, and we’re chasing the audience,” he admitted.
(L-R): Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and a shoretrooper in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
What do you make of this viewership for Ahsoka?
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