Nielsen Provides First Glimpse Into TV Ratings On Streaming Services Like Netflix And Hulu

While ratings for television programming consumed via streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu has remained largely under wraps thus far, ratings giant Nielsen has released its initial findings during a recent conference with studio partners in Las Vegas. The data that was released had to be approved by the studios behind each show, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Nielsen found that the premiere episode of Lionsgate’s Orange Is The New Black — whose fourth season debuted on June 17 — was watched by 6.7 million viewers stateside the weekend following its release. The second episode was watched by 5.9 million people. These numbers would make it the second most-viewed show on cable right now — behind HBO’s Game Of Thrones. Additionally, when Seinfeld premiered on Hulu last June, Nielsen found that the series reached 186,000 U.S. viewers on the first day and a total of 706,000 within the first five days.

In its initial attempts to measure streaming ratings, Nielsen sought to quantify total audiences per episode, age breakdown, and indications as to whether viewers were more or less likely to follow a show on traditional TV, according to the Journal

. Nielsen is only measuring viewership in the U.S., and uses audio fingerprinting content recognition technology in a panel of 40,000 homes.

All told, Nielsen also found that streaming audiences are younger than traditional television viewers. Forty-four percent of the audience for Better Call Saul on Netflix, for instance, is between the ages of 18 and 34, while this demographic only represents 24% of the show’s audience on TV. Nielsen also says that 52% of U.S. homes have at least one streaming service, according to the Journal, and 16% watch the same show on both Netflix and traditional TV.

Other analytics companies have sought to quantify ratings on streaming services — with reports that Netflix’s Fuller House episodes averaged 14.4 million viewers among adults aged 18 to 49 within the first 35 days of the show’s premiere. This is a bigger number than both The Walking Dead and Sunday Night Football.