It’s been six days since the eagerly anticipated Star Wars series, Ahsoka, debuted on Disney+, and according to reports, the show isn’t fairing as well as it’s ‘MandoVerse’ counterparts.
Before we continue with news of the day, I’d just like to share that you can support my work in two ways for which I’d be extremely grateful. Firstly it’s via my newly created Patreon page which has a two tier’s at this time – one to simply to support my work and a second which features ad-free articles. Secondly you can tip me with a simple one off payment on my Ko-Fi page or you can choose to support my work monthly on the platform. I’d truly appreciate it if you decided to support my work, but no pressure, I know things are pretty tough out here. Anyway, back to the reason you came here – the news!
Just before we delve into the numbers of the Ahsoka series, it is important for readers to remember that these numbers are not official as Disney typically does not release numbers for their series or films on Disney+ unless the project in question is doing exceptionally well. There’ll be two ways of spinning a positive for Disney – they’ll use unique viewers, or they’ll turn to minutes watched. In the past Disney have touted Obi-Wan Kenobi as Disney+’s most watched premiere which consisted of two episodes, with most of their series at the time only consisting of one episode premieres, and this figure was based on the number of minutes watched for both episodes and includes repeat viewings. While Kenobi is Disney’s most watched premiere in terms of minutes watched, it’s the first season of Loki which is their most watched premiere in terms of unique viewers which represents an individual watch and not repeat viewings.
It’s very rare that Disney release numbers for their Disney+ projects, so it’s left down to the third party data collectors to give fans some semblance of an idea as to how a series or film has been performing on the streaming service and that’s where outlets such as Samba TV and Plum Research come in and give us a peek behind the curtain pertaining to a projects performance. However it’s worth remembering that these outlets aren’t official and don’t paint the full picture, only Disney know how successful a series is and what the true viewership numbers for said series are. Today we’re using information gathered by Samba TV who are only able to gather information from select devices across the United States and therefore does not represent the globe or even the full representation of US viewership. However the information is still useful and still likely represents how a series is performing, just to a smaller scale and can still be comparable to past shows or movies.
Samba TV are reporting that after six days, the first episode of Ahsoka was watched by 1.2 million US households. This number is smaller than past MandoVerse series such as The Book of Boba Fett which brought in 1.7 million unique viewers after five days, 1.6 million unique viewers for The Mandalorian season three after five days and down significantly from their biggest performer, Obi-Wan Kenobi, which debuted with 2.4 million unique viewers in five days. The numbers listed were all reported by Samba TV, and as you can also see, Ahsoka also had an additional day of tracking when compared to the series mentioned.
Though Samba have not released their data on Andor’s premiere, which debuted with three episodes, Ahsoka’s 1.2 million is reportedly similar to the Diego Luna led series. Plum Research previously shared that Andor was the lowest performing Star Wars live-action series, bringing in 20 million unique viewers over the course of the entire series with The Book of Boba Fett bringing in 30 million and Obi-Wan Kenobi gathering the highest amount of views with 33 million.
Additionally, Deadline, in collaboration with Samba TV, are exclusively reporting that the second episode of Ahsoka, which premiered at the same time as the first episode (August 22nd), clocked in with 956K viewers, a note-able decline from decline from the series opener despite a mostly positive response from both critics and fans, with Ahsoka sitting at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics and with an audience score of 79%.
Ahsoka releases on Tuesdays at 6pm PT exclusively on Disney+.
Thank you for reading the article and if you enjoyed your read, or if you’re a regular reader of Bespin Bulletin then I kindly ask if you’d consider showing your support and appreciation by tipping me via my Ko-Fi page here, each tip is deeply appreciated or supporting my work via my newly launched Patreon page here. You can also listen to the latest episode of our podcast, BOB The Podcast, at the bottom of this page and on all good podcast services (new episodes release on Thursdays), where you can also sign up to a mailing list to receive and email each time I publish a new article and you if you’re not already doing so, follow me on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Threads, Hive, and Mastodon.
