Just as I said last month, it turns out the X-Men ’97 ratings aren’t good on Disney+ as now it is learned the first two episodes failed to make the Nielsen charts for the week they were released.
Sure, Disney via Variety reported the two episodes were viewed 4 million times, which bamboozled some fans into thinking that’s a great number (“wow! a million is a lot!”) — however, Variety’s report never said it was a good number, never said the ratings were high, and didn’t even say the two episodes of X-Men ’97 beat the one episode of What If!, which is a big clue as to the true numbers for X-Men ’97.
It also appears as if X-Men ’97 didn’t beat Ms. Marvel, one of the least-watched MCU series on Disney+ along with Echo.
Worth a mention is that Ms. Marvel is live-action while X-Men ’97 is animated, but again, according to the numbers released, Ms. Marvel does happen to be the least-watched live-action MCU series on Disney+, and it also led to the big failure of The Marvels, which is the worst performing MCU movie and superhero movie of all time.
And this is the “X-Men” we are talking about here.
X-Men ’97 didn’t make Nielsen’s charts: beat out by Halo
Regarding the Nielsen charts, we see that X-Men ’97 didn’t make the list for the week of March 18-24, with the two episodes released on March 20 (update: also didn’t make the list for March 25-31).
We also see that Paramount+’s Halo series made the chart with 295 minutes (millions) while X-Men ’97 did not, which obviously means X-Men ’97 was watched less and has a lower number.
Worth a mention is that Paramount+ has 64 million subscribers while Disney+ is reported to have nearly double that of around 111 million.
Two episodes of X-Men ’97 may not have beat one episode of What If?
So in Variety’s report about the 4 million views, again, it never said X-Men ’97 beat the What If? premiere, just that X-Men ’97 was the biggest premiere since What If?
Well, guess what? The first episode of What If? did make the Nielsen charts for the week it was released, which came in at 225 minutes (millions).
So if X-Men ’97 couldn’t even beat What If?, it could have a lower number than that 225.
What about Ms. Marvel?
Ms. Marvel beat What If?
Nielsen previously revealed the Ms. Marvel one episode premiere was watched for 249 million minutes, which beats What If?
While don’t really know the Nielsen X-Men ’97 Nielsen numbers, we can take a guess.
If we take the 4 million known views for the TWO episodes of X-Men ’97, that would be 2 million views an episode.
Each episode is around 30 minutes in length, so the two episodes equals 60 minutes total.
That would mean X-Men ’97 had 240 million minutes, which comes in less than Ms. Marvel.
We get further corroboration about the low X-Men ’97 ratings via Samba TV thanks to their charts and the shows they did release numbers for, which includes the first episodes of both What If? and Ms. Marvel, and for shows released the same week as X-Men’97.
X-Men ’97 didn’t make Samba TV’s charts, either
As we see above, just like Nielsen, X-Men ’97 also didn’t make Samba TV’s list, but we do see matching with Nielsen, Halo comes in at #10.
Samba TV also previously revealed that the first episode of Ms. Marvel was watched by 775K households, which clues us in on the X-Men ’97 numbers, as Samba TV never reported the X-Men ’97 numbers (obviously an indicator they aren’t good).
Samba TV has stopped reporting on Marvel (likely at the request of Disney who is an investor, is my guess, as the numbers are so bad), but what we can do is guesstimate the X-Men ’97 numbers by using numbers that Samba TV has released for the same week.
3 Body Problem watched by 961K households
Per above, Netflix’s 3 Body Problem made Samba’s TV charts coming in at #6 with 961K households the same week of the release of X-Men ’97.
Again, Ms. Marvel is reported to have 775K households and Halo comes in four below 3 Body Problem on Samba TV’s charts, and again, X-Men ’97 didn’t make the Nielsen charts while Halo did, so along with the Nielsen guesstimate via above, it appears as if X-Men ’97 was watched by less people than Ms. Marvel.
What about Samba TV’s What If? numbers?
What If? watched by 281k households
Samba TV actually reported the first episode of What If? was only watched by 281k households on the first day of release, so we can guess the numbers are a bit higher for the week. The company clams to actually have a better ratings system than Nielsen, and again, Disney is an investor.
So that could very well mean X-Men ’97 has the same amount of households or even lower than What If?, which could be far less than Ms. Marvel‘s 775k.
We can add even if X-Men ’97 was watched by the exact amount of people that watched Ms. Marvel, that still isn’t a really good number.
Marvel brand is suffering
If the X-Men ’97 ratings are in the gutter which is suggested by the above, I think it further shows how many fans have stopped watching Disney+ and how bad the Marvel brand has been hurt from the past five years worth of garbage content.
That said, Disney+ has renewed X-Men ’97 for a Season 2, so fans can be happy about that, but the fans watching are just the hardcore Marvel fans (the same type of fans that turned out for The Marvels), which doesn’t bode well as it means X-Men ’97 is doing nothing to bring in new subscribers, but at least looks to be maintaining the small number of Marvel fans left subscribing to Disney+.
X-Men ’97 ratings in summary:
- X-Men ’97 didn’t beat the What If? season premiere – Variety
- What if? season premiere had 225 minutes (millions) – Nielsen
- What if? season premiere watched by 281k households (first day) – Samba TV
- X-Men ’97 didn’t make the Nielsen charts
- Lower than Halo‘s 295 minutes (millions) – Nielsen
- Ms. Marvel premiere watched 249 minutes (millions) – Nielsen
- Ms. Marvel watched 775k households – Samba TV
- X-Men ’97 didn’t make the Samba TV charts
- 3 Body Problem watched by 961k households – Samba TV
- Halo four spots below 3 Body Problem – Samba TV
- X-Men ’97 below Halo – Samba TV
