‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ tops streaming viewership

“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” was the most- streamed program in the weekly figures released Thursday by Nielsen, after back-to-back second-place finishes.

Viewers watched 855 million minutes of the Marvel miniseries on Disney+ between April 12-18, 14.3% more than the 748 million minutes watched the previous week. The latest viewership figure includes the first three days of release of its fifth episode.

“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” was the first Disney+ program to top the streaming ratings since the Pixar computer-animated fantasy comedy- drama “Soul” led the week of Dec. 21-27.

“NCIS” was second, one spot higher than the previous week, with 779 million minutes watched of 353 episodes of the CBS action drama That’s an 11.1% increase from the 701 million minutes watched the previous week.

The previous week’s leader, “Thunder Force,” dropped to third with 742 million minutes watched in its first full week of release, down 21.9% from the 950 million minutes watched in the first three days of release of Netlix’s superhero film comedy.

“Them” rose three spots to fourth, with 670 million minutes watched of the 10-episode Amazon Prime Video’s horror drama anthology in its first full week of release, 52.6% more than the 439 million minutes watched in its first three days of release.

For the second consecutive week “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and “Them” were the only non-Netflix programs in the Top 10. Nielsen also announces streaming viewership of Hulu programming.

The only newcomer to the Top 10 was “The Circle,” ninth for the week with 443 million minutes watched of the 16 episodes of the social media competition. Netflix released the first four episodes of the social media competition’s second season April 14. Its 12-episode first season was released Jan. 1-15, 2020.

“The Serpent” dropped out of the Top 10, with viewership of Netflix’s eight-episode British crime drama dropping to 226 million minutes, 44.3% less than the 406 million minutes watched the previous week when it was ninth.

The top 10 consisted of five programs that originally aired on U.S. or Canadian broadcast or cable networks, three original streaming programs, one movie and “CoComelon,” which originated as 3D animation videos of both traditional nursery rhymes and original children’s songs on YouTube.

The Top 10 programs were “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”; “NCIS”; “Thunder Force”; “Them”; “Grey’s Anatomy”; “CoCoMelon”; “Criminal Minds”; “Schitt’s Creek”; “The Circle”; and “Heartland.”

The figures only reflect television set-related viewing, including such television-connected devices as Roku and Apple TV. Mobile-only viewing is not included in Nielsen’s streaming measurement systems.

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