The “The Last Dance”, 10 part documentary on the life of one of the greatest basketball player Michael Jordon and his time with the Chicago Bulls has broken all records on ESPN and Netflix.
ESPN claims all viewership records broken
The documentary averaged more than 5.6 million viewers per episode during its 5-week run, and is pulling in nearly 13 million viewers an episode from on-demand viewing, ESPN announced on Thursday.
“The Last Dance” averaged 5.648 million viewers across all 10 episodes when they premiered on Sunday nights the past five weeks — making it the most-watched ESPN documentary of all time.
The first episode had the largest audience at 6.34 million, while the eighth episode had the lowest at 4.918 million. That was the only episode to pull in fewer than five million viewers.
As Per the report, it was the top program across all of television since live sports were stopped in mid-March due to the coronavirus among men between the ages of 18-54.
“We are thrilled with the response from fans throughout the run of the series,” ESPN executive vice president Connor Schell said in a statement. “The past five Sunday nights have brought fans together providing the type of communal viewing experience traditionally reserved for live sports. The exceptional content of the series has cut through culturally and sparked conversations far beyond ESPN platforms.”
Netflix claims – Documentary watches by 23.8 Mn outside US
Netflix says overseas hoops fans flocked in huge numbers to “The Last Dance,” the documentary series about Michael Jordan and the ’90s Chicago Bulls team, which has been a ratings smash in the U.S. for ESPN.
Netflix tweeted the numbers Wednesday, claiming that 23.8 million households outside the U.S. checked out “The Last Dance” in its first four weeks on the service. “23 was always his lucky number!” the streamer said, referencing Jordan’s jersey number.
But some big caveats are in order — Netflix’s selectively reported viewing figures aren’t comparable to TV ratings. The streamer bases its publicly reported audience metrics based on how many member accounts watched a given show or movie for a minimum of just 2 minutes — an in-house calculation the company claims is a better reflection of popularity than average time spent viewing, which is how the television world measures viewership.
