Cobra Kai karate-kicked the crap out of both of those big fancy fantasy shows, Nielsen says
Netflix's Karate Kid follow-up nearly beat Rings Of Power and House Of The Dragon's streaming numbers combined
Much attention has been paid, over the last few months, to the competition currently raging for the TV fantasy crown, with HBO’s House Of The Dragon on one side, and Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power—both immensely expensive, lushly produced series with very different takes on what fantasy audiences want—on the other. And both of them, as it turns out, can’t hold a candle to the former YouTube Red show where the surviving stars of The Karate Kid train local youths to fight like Pokémon on behalf of their various egos.
This is per Deadline, reporting on new streaming numbers from TV data company Nielsen, which reports that Netflix’s Cobra Kai has won the streaming wars for the second week running, its recently-arrived fifth season comfortably crane kicking the shit out of both big fantasy shows in the company’s count of total minutes streamed.
In fact, Cobra Kai came just a hair short of beating House Of The Dragon and Rings Of Power combined; Nielsen reports that viewers streamed 1.9 billion minutes of the series during the week of September 12 to September 18—these streaming numbers are always running on a bit of a delay—whereas House scored 960 million, and Rings 988 million. That time period, by the way, maps to episode 4 of House Of The Dragon, “King Of The Narrow Sea,” and episode 3 and a bit of episode 4 of Rings Of Power. It also maps to all of Cobra Kai season 5 (and all the seasons before it), suggesting that, for all that Netflix has gotten some flak of late for its continued adherence to the binge release model, as everyone else goes weekly to give their shows a longer tail, it does pay occasional dividends.
Cobra Kai stars Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Maridueña, Tanner Buchanan, and Mary Mouser; Netflix has yet to renew the show for a sixth season, although *elaborately gestures at the preceding 300 words of reported streaming dominance* c’mon, it’s not that hard to imagine.