Andor's Viewership Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story About Its Success

Aaron Fonseca
Jun 3
6 min read

With the response from critics and fans, Andor: A Star Wars Story is a massive hit, but the various viewership numbers for the show tell a different story. Streaming on Disney+ is not like airing on linear network or cable TV, but third-party services use various methods to analyze how many people are tuning into a series. While ratings used to determine whether or not a show was successful, the streaming era changed all that. The second and final season of Andor earned a high score on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics and audiences in rare agreement about its excellence.

As the first (and thus far only) Star Wars project aimed primarily at adults, viewers eagerly embraced the mature storytelling that traded Force philosophy for moral ambiguity. The series ignores the Jedi and the Sith, focusing instead on the sacrifices everyday galactic citizens made to foment the rebellion against the Empire. With 12 episodes in each season, Andor is also significantly longer than most Star Wars series, which usually run for eight episodes. The series, created by Tony Gilroy, is a unique offering in the canon, and it brought about a rare moment of unity among (almost) all Star Wars fans. However, Lucasfilm and Disney are in the entertainment business, and so the effort to quantify just how many people are watching Andor is a crucial part of determining its success. Yet these numbers only tell part of the story, and they aren’t as important as they used to be.

How TV Ratings Used to Work, and How It’s Changed in the Streaming Era

Nielsen Numbers Could Make or Break a Show, Now They’re Less Important

For most of the history of television, ratings were the metric by which networks determined success or failure. The higher a show scores in the ratings, particularly specific demographics, dictated how much a channel could charge advertisers for commercials. The revenue from advertising was how broadcast networks earned back the money they invested in a show’s budget. Cable channels also used this metric, but they earned some portion of the revenue paid by subscribers, too.

Even before the streaming era, the highest-rated historical TV series debuts didn’t immediately translate into success or longevity. Some shows like Full House or Twin Peaks became part of the fabric of pop culture. Other big hits like Grand Slam or Brothers and Sisters are all but forgotten. The most successful series on TV, like Grey’s Anatomy, may not win the highest numbers in the ratings, but they perform consistently well enough to earn renewal each year. Yet even before Netflix, Disney+ and other streamers, the way people watched TV changed.

When Lost debuted in 2004, it was a ratings sensation, yet over its six-season run, on-demand viewing, digital video recorders and online “downloads” grew in popularity. Traditional ratings numbers from the Nielsen company didn’t track these, at first. So, Lost looked like it declined in popularity, yet it was frequently the most-recorded or most-downloaded series during its run. With streaming, it’s even more difficult for third-party companies to figure out how well a series performs, especially since viewers are no longer limited to a specific time or channel to watch. With shows dropping entire seasons at once, how people watch television evolved beyond “appointment TV” of old.

Studio-Owned Streaming Services Like Disney+ Have More Complete Data Than Third-Party Analysts

Whether the Studio Knows How to Read These Raw Numbers and What They Mean Is Another Story

The strategy behind releasing Andor episodes makes sense when one considers that Nielsen and other streaming ratings trackers evaluate a show’s performance by “minutes watched.” Dropping three episodes per week means more minutes available for viewers to stream. The show debuted in the Nielsen streaming charts with 721 million minutes watched, and the most recent numbers (through the week of May 4) increased to 821 million minutes. Variety’s Luminate tracker registered numbers similar to Nielsen, with the Andor debut episodes racking up 714 million minutes watched. The Luminate numbers showed a slight decline each week, with only 326 million minutes streamed for the week ending May 29.

Star Wars Series	Total Episodes	Total Runtime
The Mandalorian	24	14:15:22
The Book of Boba Fett	7	4:55:40
Obi-Wan Kenobi	6	3:42:36
Andor	24	17:46:54
Ahsoka	8	5:12:39
The Acolyte	8	4:28:00
Skeleton Crew	8	4:11:54

While most of those numbers indicate an improvement over Andor Season 1, which debuted with over 620 million minutes watched. New episodes were released weekly, and they usually earned about half that debut number. Compared to other Star Wars series, Andor outperforms The Acolyte, Skeleton Crew and The Book of Boba Fett. Series like Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian also earned similar numbers, but they featured fewer episodes with shorter runtimes. Still, these viewership estimates are really only for the entertainment press and Star Wars fans to quantifiable statistics. Since Disney owns the service, they can likely get far more specific data about Andor viewers. Streaming audiences differ in how they watch shows.

Some viewers wait until the entire season releases, then watch it all at once. Others watch the episodes individually or even piecemeal. Some viewers subscribe to the service and view ads, creating an additional revenue stream not unlike linear channels. Most importantly, Disney can tell if people are finishing the series or rewatching it. The days when studios needed third-party ratings to determine success are all but over. Yet the sheer volume of raw data available doesn’t mean they know how to interpret it. Netflix, for example, values “completion rate” more than minutes streamed. A show that earns high viewership for just its first episodes is less likely to get a second season than one with lower minutes streamed, but audiences watch all the way through.

Andor and Other Star Wars Films Have a Longer Lifespan Than Regular Shows

Audiences Simply Don’t Watch Television the Same Way as They Used To

The very nature of streaming services as a direct-to-consumer product means that immediate viewing may not be as important as it once was. Anything can become “a hit” at any time. Originally just on Hulu, Disney licensed Lost to Netflix, garnering over 1 billion minutes streamed 20 years after its debut. So even though the Star Wars faithful flocked to Andor in respectable numbers, fans will continue to find and view the show as long as it is available. Just as they do with the Star Wars films, viewers will revisit the series or even just their favorite episodes. For Disney, it’d be a win if someone signed up for the service to watch Andor, and then forgot to cancel their subscription.

Currently, the only Star Wars series in active production is Ahsoka Season 2. The biggest Disney+ hit, The Mandalorian will return as a feature film. If Lucasfilm limits its television production to animated shows like the forthcoming Maul: Shadow Lord or Star Wars: Visions, the value of shows like Andor and others could increase as fans revisit these series instead of new releases. If the collection of Star Wars shows and films keep people subscribed, that’s as good for the company as investing in new productions. Then again, since Disney+ takes in more than $1 billion in monthly revenue on average, investing $100 million in a TV show isn’t as big of a risk as it would be for ABC to do the same.

Even with that level of revenue, the reported $645 million budget for Andor raises questions about whether it is a financial success for Disney+. The financial side of the business is often shockingly shortsighted, after all. Outside the columns on Mickey Mouse’s accounting spreadsheets, Andor is worth every penny and then some. While unfair (and equally shortsighted), a prevailing perception that Star Wars was a dying franchise was upended by the effusive critical and fan praise Andor enjoyed. It’s also the type of prestige series that could draw in viewers who left Star Wars behind in junior high or never got into it. Both passionate and disaffected fans are reinvigorated about the future of this galaxy. What Andor adds both narratively to the saga and to the legend of Star Wars in pop culture has a value that can’t be as easily quantified as minutes streamed or subscriber revenue.