Ever since Disney+ launched, the main focus of original programming has been on two core franchises, Marvel and Star Wars, with multiple shows a year being release in the past few years.

We’ve seen very popular shows like “WandaVision” and “The Mandalorian” get incredible viewership and become a selling point for the streaming service, which also benefited from launching just prior to the pandemic, where almost the entire world was locked in their homes for over a year, watching television.

Since the pandemic, we’ve slowly seen Disney+ viewership drop off, and while there are legitimate logical reasons why no new releases could compare with those released during those crazy times, we’ve also seen some significant problems with Disney’s push of these franchises.  Both Marvel and Star Wars have suffered from a drop in quality and a drop in interest.  

This resulted in Disney scaling back its plans for both franchises once it realised that it couldn’t build an entire streaming service around a few franchises without a reduction in quality and audiences becoming bored of them.  Disney also could no longer justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars on shows like “Secret Invasion” and “The Acolyte” when they aren’t pulling in the views to warrant that.  This is why the next adventures of “The Mandalorian” and “Captain America” are taking place on the big screen instead of Disney+.

Now that 2024 is behind us, new data from Luminate has revealed the most watched shows on Disney+ in the United States last year, and the data might surprise you.

 

Only one single show in the top ten original series of 2024 was not from the Marvel and Star Wars franchises.  “Percy Jackson And The Olympians” became the most-watched show of the year, pulling in over 3 billion minutes.  This highlights that audiences want something different from Marvel and Star Wars if it’s done well.

By comparison, Netflix’s most popular show, “Fool Me Once”, had 12 billion minutes watched, while Amazon’s “Fallout” pulled in 8 billion minutes watched, and Paramount’s “Landman” pulled in 10 billion minutes watched.

However, it also shows just how reliant Disney+ has been on Marvel and Star Wars, but with both franchises suffering in audience interest in 2024, this has resulted in a general lack of viewership in these new originals. 

Another big surprise for many is that “The Acolyte” was the second most-watched show on Disney+, especially considering the online backlash to the series, which, when combined with the low viewership, is why it was cancelled after one season.  Many also believe that the failure of “The Acolyte” also damaged the Star Wars brand even more, knocking the interest in “Skeleton Crew”, which only came out in December, so that’ll be why the show is much lower down in the chart, as only half the series had been released during 2024.

Both of Marvel’s shows, “Agatha All Along” and “Echo,” have gathered far fewer viewers than any previous MCU Disney+ series released so far, which will no doubt be a disappointment. But it’s also important to register that both series are female-led spin-off series featuring lesser-known characters. More importantly to Disney, both of these shows were made on a budget of under $40 million, a fifth of the budget of “Secret Invasion.”  

This is why Disney is returning Star Wars and Marvel to mainly theatrical releases because the TV shows are too expensive to make, and they’d rather spend that money on making movies, which also provide a bigger income through the box office, home video releases, before hitting streaming.

Unfortunately, Disney+ in the United States is still stuck in limbo as it moves away from being dependent on Marvel and Star Wars originals, but without the investment in other new originals to replace them.  I honestly believe this is primarily because of the situation with Hulu and ESPN, both of which were added to Disney+ to help boost viewership, and it’s why I eventually see Hulu merging fully into Disney+.  

Disney is already producing popular shows for adults, with hits like “Shogun,” “Grey’s Anatomy,”, The Bear”, “Abbott Elementary,” and “Only Murders In The Building,” so it can save billions of dollars by offering its already existing general entertainment content machine to adults. Internationally, all of these shows are exclusive to Disney+ and dominate the viewership charts.  

Each week, the Nielsen streaming chart is full of Disney-made shows being watched on Hulu and Hulu On Disney+, but because many of the shows also air on linear channels, they don’t get listed within an “originals” chart.   It’s the same situation with shows made by National Geographic and Disney Channel, which wouldn’t “qualify” for the chart from Luminate.  Highlighting the biggest issue with this data.  It doesn’t give us all the information, and it’s why the internet is full of headlines about Marvel and Star Wars viewership being down, because, let’s be honest, Disney+ barely had any other “originals” released in 2024 which would have qualified for this list.

This viewership chart of 2024 for Disney+ highlights the problems the streaming service has right now.  Disney’s content has been splintered off in so many different directions that comparing the viewership to Netflix or Amazon isn’t a direct or fair comparison.  There are many layers to this.

In 2024, Disney+ Originals made up just 4.4% of viewership and Hulu’s was 5.1%.  So combined, would be larger than any other streaming service, except for Netflix, which was at 63.5%.  But once again, because many of Disney’s shows also air on linear channels, that viewership isn’t counted in this data.

Marvel and Star Wars are both damaged brands after the last few years of the studios focusing on creating too many projects for Disney+, most of which weren’t up to scratch and interest has waned.  It’s clear that Disney has a plan to bring its platforms together, to offer audiences more choices, and to allow for better spending on content that people watch.  Unfortunately, it’s just taking so long for them to do it, and the viewership data of original programming in 2024 isn’t good.  All of its shows have failed to hit the mark in one way or another.

Disney+ needs to improve on many levels, especially if it wants to compete with Netflix, it must bite the bullet and combine its content engines into a more streamlined offering. 

What do you think?  Let me know on social media!

 

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Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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