How did this happen? Part of it can be explained by the arrival of a number of new series that have shaken up the leaderboards: What If…? is the latest Marvel winner for Disney, storming into the Top 10 in its first month on the leaderboards. Hulu had three big, new successes with Nine Perfect Strangers, American Horror Stories, and Reservation Dogs, while HBO’s The White Lotus comparatively underperformed, despite the fact that it cracked the Top 20 in its first full month on the air. That instability, combined with the continued momentum of Disney+’s Marvel content, allowed such a tremendous shift to take place.
1. Netflix Suffers its Least Watchworthy Month Ever: February of 2021, until this point, had been Netflix’s worst month in the Streaming Wars. This August, its share of Engagement was 6% less than its share in February. Last month’s #1 show Locke & Key disappeared from the leaderboards, as did Outer Banks. It’s not that voters suddenly soured on these series — Sentiment on both shows changed relatively little on Ranker. It’s just that Engagement for newer shows soared this month, and Netflix had little in the way of new content to offer in August (The Chair, led by Sandra Oh, debuted at #31 this month, failing to make much of an impact).
2. Disney+ Poised for Dominance: Loki seized the #1 spot, while WandaVision, a show that premiered at the beginning of the year, crawled seven spots up to #3. Combined with an even greater jump from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and the strong debut of What If…?, stopping Disney+ was a tremendous feat that HBO just wasn’t up to this month. The question is whether these shows can get even stronger in September without any backup from new premieres — Star Wars: Visions is set for release next month, but so far, animated Star Wars fare like The Bad Batch has made little impact on the Watchworthy leaderboards. To compete with Netflix’s anticipated horror series Midnight Mass, Disney’s originals will have to put up an even stronger performance to push the service to the top.
3. HBO Takes a Hit: Despite Mare of Easttown’s deserved rise back to the leaderboards, HBO just didn’t have enough to offer in August, especially compared with Disney+ and Hulu. The White Lotus was widely discussed on the web, earning it a spot on the leaderboards a month and a half after its premiere — admirable, but not enough when competition was so strong. F-Boy Island, the platform’s recent foray into original reality programming, might rise to the occasion in September, as the series came close to the leaderboard at #23 after premiering at the end of July.
4. Hulu Hits it Big with New Premieres: After months of losing share to up-and-coming services like Paramount+ and Disney+, Hulu made clear with its latest originals that it’s more than just a content library — it’s a major TV competitor. Sitcom Reservation Dogs from the mind of Taika Waititi, American Horror Story spinoff American Horror Stories, and ensemble drama Nine Perfect Strangers all combined to bring Hulu within 5% of the Top 3. If these shows continue to build momentum, and Steve Martin’s new comedy Only Murders in the Building is successful, Hulu could make HBO Max’s current woes even worse by overtaking the platform in September.
5. Peacock Picks Up the Pace: Another winner in August is Peacock, which had a 6% larger share than it did in July and climbed three spots in the platform leaderboards. It owes that growth to the success of crime drama Dr. Death, which used its star power (the show stars Alec Baldwin, Christian Slater, and Joshua Jackson) to debut at #19 on the leaderboards. Also contributing were Resident Alien, SVU spinoff Law & Order: Organized Crime, and Peacock’s documentary about the story its leading drama is based on, Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story.
6. Apple TV+’s Two Big Performers Bring Too Little To the Table: As we predicted last month, Ted Lasso earned a significant spike in Engagement in August, climbing nine spots to claim the #6 spot on the Watchworthy leaderboards. Mr. Corman, the Joseph Gordon-Levitt dramedy that premiered this month, had a respectable debut at #14. But that was pretty much it for Apple this month, save for a bit of Engagement earned by Schmigadoon! With shows like Home Before Dark disappearing from the leaderboards, it’s unclear how Apple can stop itself from slipping down the leaderboards in the future.
7. Paramount+ Stops Climbing and Starts Falling: iCarly was the only Top 20 show this month to lose ground without falling off the board completely, but its relatively small drop still hurt Paramount+ in a big way during such a competitive month. The appearance of The Stand in the Top 20 did little to prevent Paramount+ from falling behind the similarly lagging Apple TV+.
8. Amazon Lays An Egg: We’ve noted the service has been losing steam recently, but we wouldn’t have expected this: not a single Amazon Prime Video series managed to register in August. Invincible and Upload are gone, and no debuts from the service are getting any Engagement, either. It’s possible this is only a temporary blip for the service, which had until very recently been among the Top 4 platforms. This is the first time Amazon Prime Video has ever fallen to last place in the Streaming Wars.
