Disney’s latest attempt to make a quick buck off of the magic that used to be the Star Wars universe is a show called Ashoka. It is about one of the compatriots of Anakin Skywalker before he became Darth Vader and follows her after the fall of the Empire from the original trilogy. It was also, apparently, a disaster for the woke company, which allegedly inflated its viewership numbers tremendously in an attempt to put a cheery face on things as former fans tune out of woke Disney slop.
As background, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy was quick to claim success when the show debuted, saying that it had managed to pull in 14 million views on Disney +, which, if true, would have meant that it was the very top streaming option on the company’s streaming platform.
That supposed success was announced on the official StarWars.com website, which said in a blog post, “Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company are thrilled and humbled to announce that Part One of Ahsoka, “Master and Apprentice,” was the most-watched title on Disney+ this past week. The debut episode garnered 14 million views, making the series number one globally on the streaming platform.”
Kennedy, speaking about the show when it debuted and she claimed it was a success, said, “Ahsoka has become a fan favorite with people of all ages and it’s wonderful to see her continue to resonate with viewers in her very own headlining series.”
Continuing, Kennedy claimed the crew behind the show was quite talented, saying, “I want to recognize the fantastic work done by our creative team, led by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, the incredible cast led by Rosario Dawson, and our talented crew — and on behalf of the team and all of Lucasfilm, we give our thanks to all the fans who have been with Ahsoka on every step of her journey and to all those who are just learning about her now in Ahsoka on Disney+.”
Well, whatever the talent of the team, an industry analyst is saying that the viewership number was actually far lower, with the show actually only bringing in 1.2 million households watching in the six-day period after it came out.
That analysis came from third-party tracking firm Samba TV, which found that viewership numbers were much lower than Disney’s claims, with it being watched by just 1.2 million households over a total of six days, not 14 million as claimed.
The latest new #StarWars series, #Ahsoka finally hit screens with 1.2M US households watching over its first six days. This is similar to viewership of #Andor's premiere season and slightly lower than #TheMandalorian's third season premiere over its first six days.… pic.twitter.com/ymspRP15Es
— Samba TV (@samba_tv) August 28, 2023
Disney has released global, individual viewership numbers whereas we pushed out data showing US household viewership over a shorter time period. Hope that helps!
— Samba TV (@samba_tv) August 30, 2023
However, there is reason to believe that Samba TV’s numbers do show that the Disney data is inflated. That’s because the Disney blog post was published on August 29, just s 7 days after the show debuted on the 22, so it seems unlikely that millions of extra viewers tuned in in the one extra day. Further, if Samba’s household number is anywhere near correct, it seems equally unlikely that each household watched the episode, on average, more than ten times.
So, though the one-day difference and household vs. total viewership numbers might change the difference somewhat, that difference is likely not great enough to reach the 14 million figure given by Disney.
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