On the most recently published Nielsen streaming charts, which measured viewership for the week ending March 3, FX/Hulu’s Shōgun placed fifth in the top 10 original programs—despite having aired only two episodes by that point. This means that the epic production broke out as a significant hit. Nielsen’s rankings favor binge drops and larger episode counts, as they measure a given program’s total number of minutes streamed in a week, so Shōgun’s early debut on the charts—in its steady week-to-week rollout—signals a substantial, growing audience. This is an awards newsletter, of course, so all of that leads me to my more specific point about the meaning of those numbers: We’ve got an Emmy front-runner on our hands.
I’m David Canfield, keeping a close eye on who’s watching what as we head toward April—home of the annual, unmanageable glut of Emmy-hopeful premieres. The fact is, even in a strike-impacted season, there is too much television to watch. A very small percentage of programming will reach the threshold of Television Academy members needed to realistically contend. Like anyone, Emmy voters follow buzz and word of mouth. Your show doesn’t need to be a huge hit to garner a bunch of nominations. But it needs to stand out from the crowded crowd—and avoid the come-and-go effect that plagues so many spring debuts. So being a hit certainly helps.
Indeed, for every Shōgun or The Gentlemen—Netflix’s new Guy Ritchie comedy that hit number one on the service the week of its launch and was well reviewed—there’s Apple TV+’s The New Look or HBO’s The Regime, expensive dramas with Oscar-winning lead stars and Emmy-nominated creators that have missed with both critics and audiences. (It’s too early to get Nielsen numbers on The Regime, but the show’s linear HBO audience is less than a third of what True Detective: Night Country was pulling in by this point in its run.) Then there are the murkier cases: Peacock’s Apples Never Fall (featuring an excellent Annette Bening performance) received similarly mixed reviews but proved a major audience hit, while today’s big premiere, A Gentleman in Moscow, is a gem of an adaptation with a never-better Ewan McGregor—but whether a Paramount+ With Showtime original (yes, another tough new moniker to deal with in the streaming wars) can meet enough eyeballs very much remains to be seen.
April’s splashy new shows feature a packed list of major award-winning stars, including Julianne Moore (Starz’s Mary & George), Colin Farrell (Apple’s Sugar), Andrew Scott(Netflix’s Ripley), Robert Downey Jr. (HBO’s The Sympathizer), Michael Douglas (Apple’s Franklin), Lily Gladstone (Hulu’s Under the Bridge), and Elisabeth Moss(FX’s The Veil). Many of their series remain embargoed, so I’ll just say that what I’ve seen of this group ranges from good to great—award-worthy in at least some places or across the board. And yet only a select few, at best, will survive the spring-TV Hunger Games with enough attention to sustain them through months of Emmy campaigning.
Last April featured the premiere of Beef, which went on to sweep the Emmys and top the Netflix charts. That month alsointroduced the likes of Paramount+’s Fatal Attraction, Max’s Love & Death, Prime Video’s Dead Ringers, Peacock’s Mrs. Davis, and Apple’s The Last Thing He Told Me—each of which was backed by a major campaign, starred an acclaimed actor, and ultimately missed out completely in the top Emmy categories. It’s just the way the season goes these days; true breakouts are getting harder to come by. At least for now, we’re still in the calm before the storm. Every project’s got a chance to be the next Beef. Which will actually pull it off?
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