‘The Accident’ and ‘The Union’ Lead Luminate Streaming Service Viewership Rankings

According to Luminate, The Accident and The Union were by far the most watched original streaming series in the U.S. during the week of August 23-29.

“The Accident” led among television titles with 782 million minutes watched throughout its window, marking its first full week of availability, while “The Union” was the top film and top title overall, with 813.5 million minutes watched. August 23–29 was the Halle Berry-Mark Wahlberg film’s second full week of availability on the chart; it was No. 1 with 1.7 billion minutes watched on the previous chart.

The second most-watched title on the TV chart was “Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War,” which clocked in 500.2 million minutes in its first full week of streaming. “American Murder: Laci Peterson” had its second week on the chart, dropping to third place with 446.9 million minutes after debuting at No. 1 with 1 billion minutes the previous week.

The next three spots were also filled by repeat titles: Love Is Blind: UK (No. 4 with 328.5 million minutes watched), Emily in Paris Season 4 (No. 5 with 305 million) and Bad Monkey (No. 6 with 279.3 million). Untold: The Murder of Air McNair debuted at No. 7 with 252.9 million minutes watched in its first week on Netflix. It was followed by two more repeat titles: Bel-Air Season 3 at No. 8 with 235.7 million minutes watched and Love Island USA Season 6 at No. 9 with 210.5 million minutes watched, while Reasonable Doubt entered the charts at No. 10 with 190.7 million minutes watched.

Not on the list is The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, which returned to Amazon Prime Video for its second season on the final day of that viewing window. According to Luminate, the series’ three new episodes made it the 37th most-watched original streaming series of the week. While Rings of Power is a big-budget title that Amazon relies on to do well, it’s worth noting that it was largely competing with titles that had a full week to build viewership. The series is more fairly aligned with other single-day debuts; for example, when The Boys Season 4 premiered on Amazon in June, it pulled in 79.9 million minutes of viewers on its first day, compared to the 63.2 million minutes that Rings of Power watched over a slightly longer runtime. We’ll get a more complete picture from the season’s opening weekend and first full week of availability data.

Returning to the film list, notable debuts included “The Killer,” which landed at No. 2 with 410.8 million minutes watched in its first full week on Peacock; “Incoming,” in third with 339 million minutes watched in its first week on Netflix; and “The Supremes at Earl’s All You Can Eat,” in fifth with 139.2 million minutes watched in its first week on Hulu. “Jackpot!” came in fourth in its second week on the chart, this time with 192.5 million minutes watched.

The remaining spots on the list were taken by titles with fewer than 100 million minutes of viewership: “The Instigators,” “Robbin,” “Find Me Falling,” “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” and “A Family Affair.”

(Disclosure: Diversity and Luminate share a common owner in PMC.)