For the second week in a row, the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery has ranked on Nielsen’s top streaming chart, and this time it moved up on the list.
Disco #9
The Nielsen Top 10 original streaming program chart for the week of April 15- 21 in the USA was just released, which covers the first full week after the release of episode 3 (“Jinaal”) as well as a few days following the April 18 release of episode 4 (“Face The Strange”). Discovery ranked at number 9 on the original programs Top 10 with 241 million minutes viewed. This was one rank up on the chart since last week, but a small drop in minutes viewed. And again, it is the only Paramount+ show to make the list for the week, which continues to be dominated by Netflix series with the exception of Amazon Prime’s hit show Fallout (starring Star Trek: Prodigy’s Ella Purnell).
Since Nielsen started tracking Paramount+ shows in 2023, all three live-action Star Trek shows have made the list (Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Discovery). With a significantly smaller subscriber base than Netflix and other streamers, it is harder for Paramount+ shows to break into the top 10. Some other Paramount+ offerings have also ranked on the chart, mostly Taylor Sheridan-produced shows and Halo.
Clare Coulter as Kalzara Bix and Wilson Cruz as Culber in “Jinaal” (John Medland /Paramount+)
The fifth and final season of Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria. Discovery also premiered on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuted on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.
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Guess I helped with pushing it to 9. Just became a Nielsen viewer…
It would be interesting for Nielsen to give a “Top 10 Episodes” chart as well. Might give an interesting comparison between shows that just dumped a full season and shows that release once a week and shows that have hundreds of episodes in the backlog. (The third one tends to be a bigger factor for the chart for all programs and not just originals.)
Good job, Discovery!!
To be honest, this surprises me, as I consider season five the weakest one, despite how well it started. The story is going nowhere fast. Discovery has a history of spinning in circles and dragging three-hour plots into 10-hour seasons, but this really is an incredibly thin plot, and all of the characters not named Michael or Cleveland are being under-utilized or are simply absent.
I’ve come to view this as the worst season of Star Trek in the modern era, and possibly in the franchise’s history. I’ve enjoyed most of what CBS has produced since 2017, particularly Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds. Short Treks and Picard have also been entertaining, even with all of Picard’s flaws, and Prodigy is excellent. But ever since the Discovery crew went to the 32rd century, it’s just not pulled me in.
I’m someone who can watch any of the 12 shows and find something to enjoy, but when it comes to Discovery, I think I’ve only enjoyed, at most, about a quarter of the episodes to date… and very few of them have aired in seasons three, four, or five. Kudos to CBS and Discovery for getting the high ratings… but I don’t get it, personally. This is the weakest Trek has ever been, in my opinion.
Well, I guess you have a different view from so many others that are actually really enjoying this season. To each their own. Personally, I think it’s been so much better since they went to the 32nd century. And, as someone mentioned, the show was always supposed to be Burnham centric right from the start. And that is what it has been.
“you have a different view from so many others that are actually really enjoying this season”
True. And a similar view to so many OTHER others that are not. :)
Vive la difference.
Not too much this season. The posts are mostly positive this time around from what I see. C’est une différence assez grande.
“I’ve come to view this as the worst season of Star Trek in the modern era, and possibly in the franchise’s history.”
Is it the best season? No. But the worst in the history of the franchise? Seriously?? Hell no. It’s actually been pretty good.
This is actually down from last week but demonstrates that the show is holding steady. For the overall streaming top 10, it breaks down as follows:
How these numbers compare with season 4 is anyone’s guess.
Wait, non-streaming shows like Family Guy still show in the streaming ratings? I mean I know you can stream it but I thought this list was like a first run streaming list.
This list does prove the bigger issue with streaming in general when 10-20 year old network shows still pull in way more viewers than new shows that are costing $10+ million dollars an episode.
That’s also why I think these top 10 lists really only tells us do much.
It would be nice if they showed the FULL Nielsen ratings on every show. It would probably look very different, especially for Star Trek.
It also shows that remastering shows for HD can be a winner. Even Babylon 5 and Space Precinct have remasters.
I bet DS9 and VOY would pull in decent numbers.
Well, quality aside, ratings for cult type shows tend to jump a lot when they know the show is coming to an end. And these days it’s easier than ever to find that out even if you weren’t looking for it (I did)
The ratings are in, and you’re not correct.
Wow! Fantastic news! This really is a great season for Discovery. Much like Enterprise, it found its stride in its final season.
I tried watching Fallout, but just wasn’t my thing and stopped watching after 2 episodes. Shogun, on the other hand, is fantastic.
I won’t lie I’m still not loving this season but I do feel I’m in the minority on that based on all the glowing reviews (and I am enjoying it overall). So if it goes the way of Enterprise season 4 and turned a lot of people around who had issues with it before then that’s great.
I want every Trek show to be loved in the end. I always say when it comes to Star Trek shows and movies they are all my children, some are just better behaved than others.
I have only seen the first episode of Fallout and plan to watch the rest this weekend, but I did like it. Haven’t seen Shogun yet but have heard amazing things. Will probably watch it in a week or so
And I read it’s been renewed for season 2 and 3 so it must’ve been a massive hit.
Shogun looks amazing, and while I’ll probably wait to purchase it outright rather subscribe to yet another streaming service I’m really looking forward to seeing it. That said, I’m not enthused at the prospect of additional seasons, the miniseries having ended precisely where James Clavell’s massive novel did. If they needed to go back to the well there are several other books in Clavell’s Asia saga to adapt.
The Fallout show is really for the people who enjoyed the games and that particular kind of whackiness and weirdness of the games, so you need to be a little less serious about it to enjoy it. If you prefer your entertainment to be serious all the time you would probably have a hard time enjoying it.
I’d also add you need to be really okay with gore, because man I had to give it up for a little while after all the loss of limbs and digits.
I’ve such mixed feelings about Shogun getting renewed. There are definitely places to take the story and real life history to base that on, but there’s no more book, so it could wind up a Big Little Lies season 2, or a Game of Thrones seasons 7-8.
Yeah, definitely. No one these days seems to possess the restraint to heed the ancient maxim: “Always leave them wanting more.”
Congrats to the cast and crew of Discovery. Now, STICK THAT LANDING!
ah the conundrum of the final season bump:
is there more interest because people just want to see how the thing finally ends?
or
has the show ironically only found it’s footing once it’s been canceled?
The season was already written and mostly completely shot before it was announced it would be the final season. They just reshot some scenes in the final couple of episodes to make it a series finale instead of a season finale.
They added some scenes.But, they didn’t change anything already shot.
That’s what I said.
None of that changes my premise. Either the series ratings are up because people are more interested because it’s the last season, so there is curiosity about the ending of the story, or it has IRONICALLY found its footing only to be canceled.
The thing is: We don’t know if “ratings are up”. Paramount+ wasn’t covered by Nielsen when previous seasons of Discovery aired. The streamer has always praised the performance of the Trek shows but we simply didn’t have any concrete numbers until now.
Before season 5 started, the comment section on this website could certainly give the impression that fan opinion on Discovery was predominantly negative but I have always been sceptical how representative of the whole of fandom the people posting here are.
There are two things that have changed recently: The infighting between posters has gone down substantially. And the site owners have mentioned that they are faster to stop comments that are clearly trolling.
When Discovery’s first couple of seasons were shown on Netflix here in the UK, it always hit the top 10 and I know a few people who weren’t even Trek fans that were quite into it. I think it’s always done pretty well.
Yes, I also remember DSC making the Netflix top 10.
As far as I know, the Nielsen streaming top 10 only covers views in the US so it doesn’t say anything about international popularity but the show seemed to be doing pretty well on Netflix before Paramount+ pulled it from Netflix.
I think many of the doom and gloom comments about Discovery’s ratings are biased by the respective posters’ personal dislike of the show.
Much like Enterprise did in its final season.
That’s very different though. Enterprise was cancelled halfway through its final season. We heard Discovery was cancelled literally a year ago now so they had time to advertise it.
Nothing was Reshot.
Actually, yes. There were reshoots. Go back and read the article about the cancellation.
It wouldn’t surprise me if some of that wasn’t to give Doug Jones more of a role too so that he’s there at the end. It’s a pity Saru hasn’t been in it much as I’ve always felt he’s the best character.
It may be a bit of both.
I agree with you as well (as I usually do lol). Being the final season and people generally being positive about it has probably got it more attention.
To be honest I was surprised just how little the final season was being discussed so I assumed hardly anyone was watching it lol.
I’m still very mixed on the show personally but it would be nice to see it go out with a bang; especially all the division and acrimony it’s gotten since it started.
I’m rooting it will stick to landing.
Truly happy for the Discovery Team. Congratulations.
Congratulations to Discovery and every member of the cast and crew, the writers/directors/producers/creatives … everyone involved should take a bow. While I’ve been a fan of DSC from the get-go, Season 5 has just been on-point.
This is actually down a bit from the previous week (257 vs 241).
Paramount should have moved the premiere of Discovery up by a few weeks, with the premiere of Knuckles following the Discovery finale. Discovery is now closing out against Knuckles (now the highest rated series in Paramount+ history), the return of Bridgerton and a lot of other content listed above in the top 10 from the week of 4/15.
Go for the bragging rights, don’t work against your own show. Poor scheduling decisions at P+.
Can’t be afraid of counterprogramming, especially when there’s no such thing as time slots anymore. As for dovetailing with Knuckles… they need to ration content.
Wow great news! Honestly I am pretty surprised it’s being watched this much. It just feels like it’s not in the conversation much even with other Star Trek fans.
But happy to be proven wrong. And no matter how you feel about the show itself it does prove Star Trek is still viable. It will never be Star Wars or Marvel but it’s still a pretty solid franchise nearly 60 years later.
Talking about 60 year shows or franchises, I am actually amazed The Planet of the Apes series is still continuing and with another succesful movie. Also the Godzilla series had two succesful movies last year and that franchise is 70 years old this year. So I guess the lesson here is to never underestimate older franchises.
People are still making Sherlock Holmes movies and television series, and that literary series is almost 150 years old.
Also true, but that is a literary work so those tend to be longer lived in general. Take Shakeaspeare for example. But I think what Tiger was talking about here was more of long running science-fiction properties, hence the examples I’ve given. Of course you can also add Doctor Who to this list.
Considering Paramount+ is the UPN of streaming, that’s pretty impressive.
But just waiting for P+ and Peacock to become the next CW and limp along until someone else absorbs them.
This has all happened before and it will happen again…
It is impressive. I’m actually the only person I know who subscribes to P+.
I know one other person, and she does it for the reality TV.
Paramount is definitely desperate to find the next big thing, hence churning out so many pricey Trek and Taylor Sheridan shows at first. I was reading Kevin Costner’s revelations on how Yellowstone negotiations broke down and it put a spotlight on something that seemed pretty obviously early on – despite talking a big game, Sheridan is just one man and was never going to be able to properly devote himself to every show he was suddenly in charge of.
Yet Paramount is cancelling its only top ten hit.
stupid.
This isn’t true though. They have had several top 10 shows like Halo, many of the Taylor Sheridan shows and Picard and SNW. Knuckles just premiered and supposedly the biggest show of the year although it’s slightly skewed since they released the entire season at once.
But yeah there are others and many with higher viewings. Trekmovie only reports the Trek shows for obvious reasons.
I think a large part of it is just that Discovery is likely that they deem Discovery too similar to Strange New Worlds so having both isn’t a good way of bringing in subscribers.
I don’t know if I really agree with that. They feel like two completely different shows. SNW is mostly a fun alien of the week show in the 23rd century. Discovery is a more serialized and melodramatic saving the galaxy show in the 32nd century.
It feels like TNG and DS9. Sure some ways they are similar but still very different from each other. Discovery has more in common with Picard IMO.
Shows get more expensive as they age, and new shows tend to be viewed as more valuable than old ones for streamers. Maybe that’s going to change as retention becomes more important than subscriber growth, but until P+ is profitable, they are going to gamble they are better off luring people with new shows than renewing 4 year old series that have ballooning costs. The bet is that fewer people will unsubscribe than are reeled in.
Getting out of the long touchy-feely arcs (and reverting to short bits and pieces as in the best episodic Trek) should be a wake-up call. The Breen, unfortunately are disposable, taken from the Magic 8-ball “create a Trek villain-race backstory” toy. And the “Chase” plot has landed with a thud. I expect a dissatisfying conclusion and an obviously tacked-on farewell.
Glad to see Discovery getting the attention it deserves!
I notice that there are only positive reactions here, while Disco is one of the most criticized series in all of ST. Are critiques being filtered out?