{"id":2425227,"date":"2026-05-20T18:52:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2425227"},"modified":"2026-05-20T18:52:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:52:46","slug":"hbos-elite-2026-run-continues-unabated-and-r-rated-comedies-are-struggling-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/hbos-elite-2026-run-continues-unabated-and-r-rated-comedies-are-struggling-everywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO\u2019s Elite 2026 Run Continues Unabated…And R-Rated Comedies Are Struggling Everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

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(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what\u2019s popular in streaming TV and what isn\u2019t. I\u2019m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, <\/span>please subscribe<\/a> to get these insights each week.)<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h5>\n

Before we get going, spare me two quick asides, one on writing and one on websites.<\/p>\n

First, I\u2019ve noticed that I personalize companies, writing \u201cthey\u201d instead of \u201cit\u201d (or \u201ctheir\u201d instead of \u201cits\u201d) when writing about streamers or media conglomerates. This might be a usage \u201cmistake\u201d, but I\u2019m not changing my style anytime soon. It might be slightly idiosyncratic, but idiosyncratic choices serve to make writing more interesting, in my opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, have you ever noticed that some websites, instead of dating their articles, automatically write \u201cX days ago\u201d instead of an actual date? YouTube does it (forcing you to click the description to find the actual date), but another beloved sports website (which provides invaluable sports viewership data) also does this. It makes it so hard to find dates for events, having to calculate what \u201ctwo weeks ago\u201d actually means. Not sure there\u2019s anything to be done about that particular content management service, I just wanted to note my relatively minor objection to it.<\/p>\n

On to this week\u2019s issue. On the film side, rated-R comedies have struggled in theaters, but guess what? They struggle on streaming, too.<\/p>\n

Plus, I\u2019ll look at Netflix\u2019s poor week on the charts, <\/span>The Boys<\/em> strong second week (along with another Prime Video superhero continuing to put up strong numbers), good news for Apple TV(+) on one hand, bad news for Apple TV on another, what buzzy studio struggles to make streaming hits, underperforming reality shows, another mega Taylor Sheridan hit show (but it\u2019s not on streaming!), the DC vs. Marvel comic book sales battle, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more.<\/span><\/p>\n

But we start with TV, and HBO\u2019s strong start to 2026. Let\u2019s dive right in!<\/p>\n

(Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen\u2019s weekly <\/span>top ten viewership ranks<\/a>, Luminate\u2019s Top Ten Data, <\/span>Showlabs<\/a>, <\/span>TV Time<\/a> trend data, Samba TV household viewership, company <\/span>datecdotes<\/a>, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen\u2019s data covers the weeks of Apr 13th to Apr 19th 2026.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

You can find a link to my terminology here<\/a>.)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

For all the talk about various streamers having bad starts to the year\u2014and I basically mean all my writing so far this year \u2014one streamer\/company has impressed me: HBO. They ended December with an extremely buzzy show, kicked the year off with <\/span>A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms<\/em>, then rode <\/span>The Pitt\u2019s <\/em>fifteen-episode second season to weekly chart dominance, and now they are going right into <\/span>Euphoria<\/em>. That\u2019s a strong run, so let\u2019s talk about HBO shows, since one ended (<\/span>The Pitt<\/em>) and one just started (<\/span>Euphoria<\/em>) the week of this report.<\/span><\/p>\n

Starting with the epic run for <\/span>The Pitt<\/em>, this show topped the Nielsen charts this week, in its fifteenth week of release:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Yep, <\/span>The Pitt<\/em> hit 23.1 million hours in the week of its finale. Now, a lot of folks saw Nielsen\u2019s chart comparing season one to season two of <\/span>The Pitt<\/em>. Here\u2019s that look (which includes the weeks <\/span>The Pitt\u2019s<\/em> first season missed the charts):<\/span><\/p>\n

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I saw that chart lots of places. But what I didn\u2019t see was an analysis of the biggest second seasons of all time on the Nielsen top ten charts! So here you go:<\/p>\n

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In my mind, this accomplishment is even more impressive.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bigger than other mega-hit shows like <\/span>Wednesday<\/em>, <\/span>Squid Game<\/em>, <\/span>The Mandalorian, Bridgerton, <\/em>and more. Plus, <\/span>The Pitt<\/em> is just 4.8 million hours shy of <\/span>Landman\u2019s<\/em> second season. Given how well it did this week, I bet it makes the Nielsen charts next week, and that means it will almost assuredly displace <\/span>Landman<\/em> as the biggest second season according to the Nielsen top ten charts since 2020. Yes, <\/span>The Pitt<\/em> has a lot more episodes than any of those shows, but in this case, that\u2019s a feature, not a bug.<\/span><\/p>\n

What a monster show.<\/p>\n

Other data backs this up. Samba TV had <\/span>The Pitt<\/em> as the top show on streaming for the last few weeks. They also put out that the finale was up 87% from season one and 13% from the start of season two, for a whopping 5.1 million households in its first six days. Those are big, big numbers. It also did really well on Luminate, with season one and season two making those charts for the last several weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

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And yes, we got the obligatory HBO <\/span>datecdote<\/a>. <\/span>The Pitt<\/em> finished with <\/span>9.7 million viewers in its first three days<\/a>, making it the biggest show since the second half of 2025 in terms of viewers for one episode in three days. (HBO changed metrics after <\/span>The Last of Us<\/em>, changing from \u201cfirst day\u201d viewership to \u201cfirst three days\u201d. I\u2019m going to try to get some historical data to expand this comparison in a future issue.)<\/span><\/p>\n

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And a new HBO show made the Nielsen charts as well, the aforementioned <\/span>Euphoria<\/em> in third place.<\/span><\/p>\n

This show remains very popular, even with its gigantic gaps between seasons. It debuted in 2019\u2026but has only put out three seasons since then. Huh. I don\u2019t agree with that strategy, but in this rare case, it\u2019s not hurting the viewership. <\/span>Euphoria<\/em> is already climbing the Samba TV charts, up to second place (see above), and this week it finally made the Nielsen charts with 9.3 million hours. (The previous season missed the acquired charts.) It also got the HBO datecdote treatment, <\/span>with 8.5 million viewers for the premiere in three days<\/a>. Episode two did 8.5 million viewers, too, according to HBO.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, <\/span>Euphoria<\/em> will have trouble catching <\/span>The Pitt\u2019s<\/em> total performance, since this season will only have eight episodes, and we\u2019ll see how long it lasts on both the Samba TV and Nielsen charts. (It won\u2019t surprise me if it takes the first place sport on Samba TV.) Overall, though, this show is another hit for HBO right off the back of <\/span>The Pitt\u2019s<\/em> elite run.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is an argument for weekly releases and plus-sized episode orders, since it makes the content spend more efficient. HBO doesn\u2019t put as many shows on the Nielsen charts as Netflix, but they keep their shows on the charts for much longer. That means fewer shows for the same top performance, and honestly, <\/span>as my strategy column this week implied<\/a>, I wonder how long Netflix can avoid switching to this.<\/span><\/p>\n