Once again, X-Men ’97 fails to make the Nielsen streaming charts, as measured by the viewership data analytic company with three episodes released as of March 31.
Nowhere to be found with three episodes released
Nielsen measures ALL the minutes of EVERY episode viewed for the week, where we see at the bottom is Netflix’s Is It Cake? series, which obviously means all three episodes of X-Men ’97 have been viewed by a smaller number.
As I went over about the two-episode premiere, it looks as if only a small number of die-hard Marvel fans are watching the series, with the viewership comparable to Ms. Marvel, the MCU’s least-watched series on Disney+ which led to the failure of The Marvels and Disney losing $200 million.
Worth a mention is that Ms. Marvel, after three episodes, also didn’t make Nielsen’s charts, the only MCU series not to do so, now joined by X-Men ’97 (non-MCU and animated but “Marvel” and “X-Men”).
X-Men: The Animated Series ratings vs X-Men ’97
I was also asked about comparing X-Men ’97 to the original X-Men: The Animated Series.
According to the X-Men: The Animated Series wiki, “In its prime, X-Men garnered very high ratings for a Saturday morning cartoon… X-Men reached a viewership of over 23 million households.”
In 2017, an artist and producer on the original series did tell THR the original series had big ratings: “In our time slot, we were doing business nobody had done since the ‘70s. Fox had this 1, 2, 3 in ratings,” said Will Meugniot.
It’s also known as a result of the huge success of the X-Men: Animated Series, that it led to FOX greenlighting Power Rangers (and the rest they say is history).
MIA from Samba TV, too
Samba TV (Disney is an investor), reports on household viewership numbers, but didn’t report on X-Men ’97 (likely at the request of Disney).
As I previously went over, Netflix’s 3 Body Problem premiered the same week of X-Men ’97; according to Samba TV, 3 Body Problem was watched by 961k households, so that means X-Men ’97 is lower.
X-Men ’97 has also never made the Samba TV weekly charts who reports on more up-to-date data than Nielsen, and reportedly, has access to more devices.
Now that’s obviously a huge difference in numbers between the original X-Men: Animated Series and X-Men ’97, where it should be pointed out the original series aired on FOX/network TV; however, the original series has something that X-Men ’97 doesn’t: kids.
Bluey blows away X-Men ’97
The original X-Men: Animated Series aired as part of Saturday morning cartoons, which was huge at the time.
X-Men ’97 airs on a streaming service, and for a comparison to a kids’ show (see above), the Disney+ Bluey series blows it away, where there is no comparison (3-4x more kids are watching Bluey than X-Men ’97?).
Back when X-Men: Animated Series was released, comics were also lot bigger than what they are today (like 10x bigger), led by the X-Men. Jim Lee’s X-Men broke sales records at the time and the original X-Men: Animated Series series is based on his artwork.
Regarding what happened with the comics? That’s another story for another time but the last ten+ years of comics is what Kevin Feige is now adapting with the past five years of the MCU. How’s that working out?
