Netflix Lied About the Witcher: Blood Origin Viewership

Television

The Witcher: Blood Origin was a universally panned disaster that perfectly closed out one of the worst TV and film years in history while simultaneously ruining many people’s Christmases. It was broken at every conceivable level, from characters, writing, continuity, and worldbuilding to adaptation integrity. Few shows can compete with the atrocity that was Blood Origin. Upon its initial release and amid universal backlash, Netflix attempted to construct a positive narrative surrounding it, claiming that it was watched for a total of 15 million hours on its opening day and trended in their global top ten at the 7th slot. It’s a generally accepted fact that companies and studios pad their numbers and lie on a regular basis to encourage positive publicity. However, Netflix’s lie strained credulity to the point where it can be soundly disproven. The recently released Nielsen data for December 25th proves Netflix’s Blood Origin viewership claim an abject lie.

While Netflix claimed Blood Origin received 15 million viewership hours, which equals roughly 900 million viewership minutes, Nielsen shows Blood Origin didn’t even approach that number. Blood Origin’s viewership was so bad that it didn’t crack the top ten of the Nielsens in any of its categories. If Netflix’s claim had been accurate, Blood Origin would have achieved the number 8 slot in the Nielsen Top Ten, barely beating rewatches of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which received 864 million minutes watched. The failure of Blood Origin is now complete. It wasn’t only despised by all who viewed it; it was watched by so few people that the myth of a show surviving on hate-watching cannot justify its renewal or survival. Netflix’s Witcher universe was already on the ropes after Henry Cavill’s departure. Now, its viability has been nearly eradicated by the failure of Blood Origin.