Ross Ferguson / Prime Video

UPDATE: Amazon now says Season 2 of “The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power” has reached 55 million global viewers since its launch 34 days ago on Aug. 29.

That’s an increase of only 15 million viewers since the total of 40 million that the company reported 11 days after launch. By all accounts, Season 2 viewership has been slower than that of Season 1, which Amazon said hit 25 million viewers in one day when it premiered in 2022. The season recently made its debut on the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 with one billion minutes watched — a drop from the 1.3 billion minutes that Season 1 debuted with, especially when considering that the more recent total combines viewership of both seasons, and that Season 2’s first episodes had a longer runtime than Season 1’s.

The Season 2 viewership news came out of Amazon’s upfront presentation in London, where studio chief Jennifer Salke also indicated that the U.K. is “among the top regions” of the show’s audience, though exact data to corroborate that was not made available. Additionally, Salke said that Season 1 has reached more than 150 million viewers in the two years since its debut.

As originally noted, Amazon declines to define what it counts as a view; therefore, it is unclear how much of the season the 55 million reported viewers watched.

PREVIOUSLY: The first four episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 2 have reached 40 million viewers globally in 11 days, according to Amazon.

It’s difficult to put the stat in full context, as Amazon has not defined how it quantifies its viewership; for example, 40 million could simply be the number of people who watched any portion of the available episodes.

However, the studio has provided similar numbers for other titles, including the first season of “Rings of Power,” which it touted as reaching 25 million viewers in just its first day of availability in 2022. Therefore, as indicated by Luminate’s measurement of Season 2’s opening weekend, the series’ most recent outing appears to be significantly lagging behind its first. (Disclosure: Variety and Luminate share a common owner in PMC.)

Earlier this year, “Fallout” hit 65 million viewers in 16 days — more time than was counted for “The Rings of Power,” though it seems likely that “Fallout’s” 11-day count would have been higher than 40 million. “The Boys” Season 4 saw 55 million viewers in a much longer 39-day period, making it harder to compare to “The Rings of Power.”

According to Amazon, “The Rings of Power” Season 2 now sits among its top five most-viewed television seasons ever behind “Fallout” and Season 2 of “Reacher.” 2022’s “The Terminal List” has been bumped down to No. 6.

Amazon also touts that “tens of millions” of people have viewed Season 1 of “Rings of Power” since early August and that the series has been Prime Video’s No. 1 title since the Season 2 premiere on Aug. 29. The studio emphasizes that an “impressive” amount of its viewership comes from outside of the U.S., but did not provide any data to support that claim.

See Amazon Studios chef Jennifer Salke’s memo to staff about “The Rings of Power” viewership below.

Team,

It takes an endless amount of dedication and drive to deliver all the titles we’ve launched globally on Prime Video over the last 12 months. Our world-class teams have delivered record-breaking hit after record-breaking hit to our customers, including 4 of our top 5 TV titles of all time, as well as 2 of top 5 films. From the return of Reacher, to the incredible first season launch of Fallout, along with the remarkable growth we saw in season four of The Boys, and now The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, as well as our breakout films Road House and The Idea of You, we’re truly seeing the payoff to all your hard work.

We’ve also seen our global customers fall in love with titles like Culpa Mia (My Fault) from Spain and Maxton Hall from Germany. In just the last few weeks Betty la Fea, La Historia Continúa (Betty la Fea, The Story Continues) from Colombia, has quickly become our biggest ever Latin American title with global audiences. We are excited to see how our customers worldwide are connecting with these international stories, and to watch this growth continue.

On August 29, we launched the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Through the second weekend of launch, according to our key measures, the series is showing that we have another huge hit season on our hands as 40 million viewers have already watched S2. We’ve also observed that tens of millions of viewers have watched S1since early August. We’ve seen an impressive amount of our Rings of Power customers coming from outside of the U.S., which is a testament to the show’s resonance with global audiences and the remarkable growth of Prime Video customers worldwide. 

I am grateful to each and every one of you for your boundless creative energy, passion and commitment.  Together – along with our talented showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay as well as executive producers Lindsey Weber, Justin Doble, Callum Greene, Jason Cahill, and Gennifer Hutchison, our phenomenal cast, our crew and the Tolkien Estate – we have brought a wonderful and timeless story to a new audience. 

I can’t wait to see this momentum build as new episodes continue to drop. It’s such a privilege to be able to deliver best in class and Inspired storytelling to people all over the world.  Here’s to continued success and thank you again for all the great work.  It takes a village!

Jen