It Looks Like Loki's Viewer Numbers Just Took A Serious Dive
No one could be surprised that Marvel Studios' Disney+ series have been massive successes for the platform. It was proven immediately with the debut of "WandaVision" Episode 1 back in January, as the program attracted viewers in droves so large it crashed the streaming service, according to Deadline. Those kinks were eventually worked out, as crashing wasn't an issue for subsequent series "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier." The first three episodes of "Loki," starring Tom Hiddleston, haven't had any problems either.
This doesn't mean hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people aren't tuning into the newest Disney+ smash. The debut episode of "Loki" was the most-watched premiere out of the three MCU series so far, with over 890,000 households tuning in on the first day of its release, per Samba TV. This was a higher viewership count than the premiere episodes of both "FaWS" and "WandaVision," making "Loki" the biggest debut success thus far. Unfortunately, that high premiere number hasn't held steady throughout subsequent episodes, and the numbers took a pretty severe dive by Episode 3 ("Lamentis").
Loki Episode 3 saw a significant shift in viewership
While Samba TV neglected to report on the stats for "Loki" Episode 2 ("The Variant"), their numbers for Episode 3 were quite the surprise. The data company revealed that the episode had 727,000 households stream it within the first day of its release. While this is still a significant number, that's 163,000 fewer homes than the first episode. While premiere and finale episodes of series generally have higher numbers of viewers than the episodes in between, the drop in the stats for "Loki" is quite a surprise.
We expect a significant number of streamers tuned into "Loki" Episode 3 but just didn't happen to do so on the day it dropped. Samba TV's numbers for Episode 1 prove that trend by showing that while 890,000 households watched the premiere immediately, 1.610 million additional households streamed it in its premiere week. That's a whopping 2.5 million homes that got a dose of "Loki" Episode 1 in the first week. While Episode 3 may not have that same viewership overall, it's definitely a lot higher than the 727,000 households that viewed it in the first 24 hours.
What does this mean for Loki moving forward?
Despite the 16% drop in viewership of "Loki" within the first 24 hours, the newest numbers are nothing to be concerned about. According to Samba TV, Episode 3 still performed better than the premiere episode of "Wandavision" and was only a few thousand shy of "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's" debut episode. Total households should rise well past one million when that information becomes available, and Episodes 5 and 6 will likely follow the same pattern. We also expect Episode 6 — the last in the series — to see another big jump in 24-hour and total viewership. "FaWS" reportedly had 1.4 million households tune in to its finale via Samba TV, a number we expect "Loki" to top as well.
"Loki" has been a trending topic on Twitter every Wednesday for the last three weeks, which means people haven't lost interest in the series as the numbers might suggest. Episode 3 is the weakest in the bunch so far when it comes to reviews, with an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to the 97% granted to the first two. Critical response can sometimes have an effect on those tuning in, even within the short period of 24 hours. Now that we're halfway through the season, we can expect some big things to come in the final three episodes, with the buzz expected to grow right along with those viewership numbers.