In this article we look at the top breakout shows of the past week. Breakout shows are the most in-demand series that have premiered in the past 100 days.
As much as people may love to hate both the show and Mindy Kaling, HBO Max's Velma had a whopping 127% increase in demand and rose up to take second place in the ranking this week. The series has been on the receiving end of a barrage of hate for the character and the storyline, yet despite this (or perhaps because of it) Velma has managed to draw in a lot of audience attention in the U.S. this week, with 37.3 times more demand than the average series.
It's been an interesting week for HBO. Two big IP's, two new shows - with each having a vastly different reception. Their new network series The Last of Us, which premiered on January 15 and received critical acclaim (and the title of "best video game adaptation ever made"), saw a 57% increase in demand and rose up to take third place in the ranking with 36.1 times the average series demand in the U.S. this week. Meanwhile their streaming original series Velma, based on the Scooby Doo franchise, which has been been recieving a massive amount of hate has also still somehow managed to keep enough eyeballs on itself to dominate audience attention this week. That's not to say that The Last of Us doesn't have that much of an audience reach - as is the case with most shows that follow a weekly episodic release schedule, we're likely to see demand for the series increase over the next few weeks as more episodes drop and audiences begin to binge watch the show.
In fourth and fifth place this week we saw Paramount+'s Sheridan shows - Tulsa King and 1923. While the former had a 7% decline in demand and had 27x the average series demand, 1923 had a further 2% increase after its fourth episode aired on January 08 - the same day as Tulsa King's finale. Releasing episodes in tandem seems to be working well for the platform, seeing as they still drew in enough eyeballs to keep both shows in the top five despite the new releases that came in this week.
Two more new shows made it into the ranking this week - Disney+'s National Treasure: Edge of History entered the rankings in eighth place with 16.5x the average series demand, a 29% increase from last week after its 7th episode aired on January 18. It has been a bit of a slow climb for the series, which actually premiered on December 14 but didn't see much of an increase in demand until now. This can be explained by the slew of Christmas and family friendly that viewers already had lined up, and seeing that the series is now close to its finale date (February 08) it is quite likely that demand for the show will continue upwards over the next couple of weeks. Netflix's latest series, That 90's show entered the ranking in ninth place this week with 15.7 times the average series demand, an impressive 93% increase considering that it only just premiered on January 19. The series has been long-awaited by fans of the evergreen That 70s show, since the new series features characters and locales from the original - serving up some nostalgia and the feeling of revisiting a childhood classic for viewers. Given all the new content available to viewers right now, it'll be interesting to see how the reboot fares in the coming weeks - whether audiences end up revisiting the series (as is usually the case with this type of long tail content) or moving on to the content from new releases.
