‘Better Call Saul’ Catch-Up Viewing Before Season 6 Propels Show To No. 2 On Nielsen Streaming Chart Behind Repeat Champ ‘Bridgerton’
06.05.2022 - 02:11
/ deadline.com
Paced by the April premiere of Better Call Saul‘s new season on AMC, catch-up viewing of the show’s first five seasons propelled the show to No. 2 on Nielsen’s streaming chart for April 4 to 10.
The Breaking Bad spinoff’s 50 episodes on Netflix generated 915 million minutes of streaming — not nearly the 1.6 billion of reigning No. 1 Bridgerton but impressive for a cable original.
Even though it now has its own portfolio of niche streaming services, AMC has had a long history of using Netflix as a potent driver of interest in its shows. Signature series like Mad Men and Breaking Bad saw stair-step growth from season to season in the 2010s thanks to licensing deals with Netflix. In season, Saul streams on emerging in-house outlet AMC+, but the April 4 drop of Season 5 on Netflix appears to have helped the premiere episode become the top-rated cable drama broadcast of 2022 with 1.4 million live/same-day viewers.
The audience for Saul was 59% male, Nielsen noted, a stark contrast with Bridgerton, which was 75% female and between the ages of 18 and 64. The Shonda Rhimes royal drama fell 49% from the previous week, but its second season is already Netflix’s most-viewed English language series of all time on a global basis.
Nielsen’s weekly chart reflects only U.S. viewing via a TV screen (meaning mobile is not counted) of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+ and Hulu.
Netflix dominated the week, with the other original in the Top 10 being dating series The Ultimatum: Marry Or Move On.
Moon Knight, the latest Marvel skein to light up on Disney+, added its second episode and saw viewership climb 45% to 608 million minutes, good for eighth place.
Encanto and Turning Red, both on Disney+, continued their long stints in the top