Image: Saturday Night Live, NBC
There was a big upset in the ranking of the 10 most in-demand shows in the US this week, May 9 – 15. Saturday Night Live was the most in-demand show in the US with 73.9 times the demand of the average series. This is up an impressive 33% from last week.
The surge in interest for the popular sketch comedy show comes in the wake of the episode hosted by Elon Musk. In the immediate aftermath of his episode, we measured that Musk was the globally most in-demand host of the show so far this season. The show’s ranking this week at the top of the US chart shows that the interest he brought to the show lasted through the week.
Both Game of Thrones and Attack on Titan saw their demand shrink by about 10% this week. Demand for Game of Thrones has remained relatively high since the “Iron Anniversary”, heavily promoted by HBO, celebrated 10 years since the premiere of the enormously popular series. This week however, interest in the series seems to be moving elsewhere. Attack on Titan is coming down from the highs seen in March and April. It is currently not scheduled to release any episodes until the second part of season 4 in 2022.
The Flash held onto its spot as the 7th most in-demand series in the US this week. Demand for the show was in fact up by 5%, making it 39.5 times the demand of the average series. It is currently releasing episodes in its 7th season and the steady growth in demand is a good sign of momentum going into the final episodes of the season.
Demand for Sesame Street was up by about 6% this week. This is partly the result of elevated interest in the show after the Street Gang documentary was released. Also the show launched an ad campaign looking forward to the end of the pandemic and encouraging people to get vaccinated.
Among digital original series, Stranger Things remained the most in-demand show in the US this week. It has recently received a boost in attention following a trailer release getting fans excited for the much anticipated, but delayed season 4.
Demand for both The Mandalorian and Star Wars: The Clone Wars was relatively stable this week. Last week both jumped up the rankings, boosted by Star Wars day on May 4th and the release of the latest show in the franchise, Star Wars: The Bad Batch. This is yet another example of Disney’s masterful use of franchise synergies to keep multiple shows at the top of audiences’ minds.
Disney+’s Marvel series did not hold up as well this week. Demand for both WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was down by more than 10% - a second week of sharp declines. We will be watching closely to see if the release of Loki in June will have the same boosting effects to its fellow Marvel series. The complexity of effectively juggling two major franchises with multiple series releasing is becoming increasingly apparent.
Demand for Netflix’s Shadow and Bone was up by around 9% this week. It saw a similar rise in demand last week. This indicates that audiences are slowly discovering the show well after its initial release date. This bucks the usual pattern of Netflix’s all-at-once episode drops, which generally see a huge spike and then drop in attention.
In percentage terms, Titans saw the largest increase in demand among the top digital originals this week. Demand for the HBO Max original was up by nearly 13%, making it 24.2 times more in-demand than the average series. New costume photos were released, making fans of the series excited for the upcoming next season.
