Newly revealed data suggests that Ahsoka saw weaker viewership data compared to previous Star Wars Disney+ projects.
While Ahsoka seems to be hitting the spot for many critics and viewers, some previously voiced concern that the show might be less accessible to those who have not seen all of the animated Star Wars Rebels series.
Even Rosario Dawson, the actor behind Ahsoka Tano herself, admitted that the series is basically Season 5 of Rebels. Sabine's Natasha Liu Bordizzo also shared that seeing Rebels before diving into the upcoming show would "add more weight to everything."
While the effect of its Rebels connections remains up for debate, at the very least, it doesn't look like Ahsoka will be breaking any records.
Ahsoka's Weaker Viewership Revealed
Viewership data from Samba TV revealed that 1.2M households watched Ahsoka over the course of its first six days on Disney+.
Comparatively, The Book of Boba Fett had 1.9 million viewers in its first six days. Obi-Wan Kenobi mustered up 2.14 million in its first four days.
As for The Mandalorian, the flagship show pulled in 2.08 million people in the first four days of its Season 2 premiere, while Season 3 only got 1.6 million within that same timeframe.
The new Samba TV post also noted that Ahsoka's numbers were only slightly lower than The Mandalorian's Season 3 premiere when looked at over its first six days.
It's important to point out some of these metrics look at a different span of days; The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan are four, while The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka are six.
Oddly enough, Samba TV did not cover Andor, so there aren't concrete numbers to pit directly against Ahsoka. That said, the original tweet revealing these new stats did mention that the viewership is "similar" to Andor's premiere season.
Disney has also released its own viewership numbers for Ahsoka's premiere episode, boasting that the series accrued 14 million viewers for Episode 1 during its first week of release on the streamer.
The company suggests that these are impressive numbers for Disney+, with the company further revealing that the episode was the most-watched title on the service that week globally.
However, it is worth noting that Disney has not previously released its own viewing numbers for other comparable programming and that these numbers are for the first episode alone, making it slightly more difficult to determine how these numbers fare against other shows on the platform.
For additional reference, here are the numbers relating to the first five days of release for Marvel Studios' Disney+ projects:
- Loki - 2.5 million
- Moon Knight - 1.8 million
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - 1.8 million
- WandaVision - 1.6 million
- Hawkeye - 1.5 million
- She-Hulk - 1.5 million
- Secret Invasion - 994,000
- Ms. Marvel - 775,000
It's worth noting that, per usual, this data is not the full picture and only amounts to a fraction of the whole audience actually tuning in to watch these shows—specifically those who have select Smart TVs opted in.
Why Was Ahsoka's Viewership Low?
While many will be quick to try and paint a bleak picture about Disney's latest Star Wars series, there is one key difference between Ahsoka and the rest of the franchise's previous Disney+ outings: none of those were dealing with two historic strikes in the entertainment industry.
Because of both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, none of the talent behind Ahsoka has been able to talk about or promote the series. This means the show is not making it to as many television sets as it might otherwise.
Considering that situation, Ahsoka's premiere could have easily done better than The Mandalorian's recent season—and certainly higher than Andor. Though, it was never likely going to reach the same heights that Obi-Wan Kenobi did due to that character's notable popularity.
While 1.2 million isn't anything to brag about, it isn't a complete failure—especially when taking into account the landscape of the entertainment industry today.
Hopefully, the powers that be at Lucasfilm don't take away the wrong message from the show's supposed weak viewership. Ahsoka only just began, yet now fans will start worrying that the much-desired Season 2 might never happen.
Ahsoka is now streaming on Disney+.
