What should come as no surprise, Episode 3 of Skeleton Crew is absent from the Nielsen ratings which follows the first two episodes not making the charts—a first for Star Wars.
Skeleton Crew is the least-watched and lowest-rated Star Wars series on Disney+. Regardless of the show’s quality, the fact remains that fans aren’t tuning in.
Nielsen is the industry standard for ratings, and as I’ve mentioned before, Disney automatically enables Nielsen tracking in your Disney+ accounts.
The Disney-invested Samba TV also continues to withhold data, which clearly suggests the ratings aren’t favorable. It’s likely that Disney requested Samba TV to stop publishing the data due to the poor performance, as it likely has done in the past with Star Wars and Marvel shows on Disney+ that haven’t made the charts.
What are the ratings?
Nielsen released the ratings for the week of December 9–15, when Episode 3 of Skeleton Crew premiered, and once again, the series failed to make the list and comes in under 306 million minutes.
It’s worth noting that this includes data for all three available episodes, not just the newest one, as Nielsen measures viewership for all episodes in a given week.
Can’t beat canceled four year old show
At the bottom of the list is A.P. Bio, a show that NBC originally canceled in 2019 due to poor ratings. It was later picked up by NBC’s Peacock, only to be canceled again in 2021. Now, the series has resurfaced on Netflix with all four seasons, landing at #10 on the Nielsen charts with 306 million minutes viewed.
This, of course, means that Skeleton Crew Episode 3 drew less than 306 million minutes of viewing time. It also indicates that the combined total for ALL three episodes is under 306 million minutes. Furthermore, it shows that no new viewers joined in to watch the episode or the previous episodes during its third week of release.
Fans have stopped watching Star Wars
The first two episodes of Skeleton Crew are known to have averaged less than 191 million minutes, so it’s safe to assume Episode 3 performed similarly. This means Skeleton Crew is nowhere near ranking on the Nielsen charts. It remains to be seen whether fans will decide to binge-watch the series and if any of its eight episodes will eventually make the list.
The previous Star Wars series, The Acolyte, made the Nielsen charts with 370 million minutes for its third episode, which would have topped the same Dec. 9 – 15 chart at #8. With Skeleton Crew not appearing on the charts, it shows how many fans have stopped watching Star Wars.
What happened?
As we’ve discussed, and as many fans have shared with us on social media (with nearly a million reached across our channels), it’s clear that the lack of quality content from recent Star Wars movies and shows is a major factor.
In particular, The Acolyte seems to be the final straw for many fans. It’s not that fans hate Star Wars or love it—they simply no longer care—and when they stop caring that’s the death nail in the coffin.
