Wednesday became the most-watched premiere of 2022 despite attracting only 66% of the show’s viewership in the first 15 days, according to a report from Samba via Deadline. After 40 days, Wednesday beat out HBO’s House of the Dragon. The HBO series was in the lead for the first 15 days.
According to Deadline, Samba TV report shows that streaming series’ have just a two-week window to attract an audience. This conclusion is drawn from the data of the 20 most popular shows released in the second half of 2022. Fifteen of the 20 shows garnered more than 75% of their 51-day viewership within the first 15 days of the show’s release, with Netflix’s Wednesday being a notable exception.
Samba attributes the success of Wednesday to the series’ social media popularity, causing it to reach a large, younger audience. Wednesday star Jenna Ortega (You, X) may also have assisted the show in attracting the attention of teen audiences, having starred in the Disney Channel series Stuck in the Middle in 2016 when the current teens of gen Z would have been the target audience.
Wednesday follows Ortega’s titular character as she attends Nevermore Academy and tries to perfect her psychic abilities, stop a killing spree, and solve a 25-year-old mystery. It was released on Netflix on November 23, 2022, and has been renewed for season two. Along with Ortega, the series stars Christina Ricci (Casper, The Addams Family), Catherine Zeta-Jones (The Mask of Zorro, Entrapment), and Emma Myers (Girl in the Basement, The Glades).
House of the Dragon is a Game of Thrones prequel series that follows the reign of House Targaryen set nearly 200 years before the events of the original series. House of the Dragon premiered on HBO on August 21, 2022, and stars Milly Alcock (Upright, Pine Gap), Emma D’Arcy (Truth Seekers, Wanderlust), and Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown). It has been picked up for a second season.
Ryan Murphy’s (Glee, American Horror Story) Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and The Watcher were the most-watched premieres of 2022 in the first 15 days of release. The four series mentioned all performed best in millennial and Gen Z households. Most audiences watch on streaming services, with just about 48% of U.S. households still having cable or satellite subscriptions. Samba reports that more than eight in 10 Gen Z and millennials stream their TV.