Amazon MGM Studios Announces Season 3 Renewal For 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power' Despite Massively Declining Viewership
Amazon MGM Studios announced it has greenlit a third season for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power despite the show massively bleeding viewership in its first two seasons.
The official Amazon MGM Studios account on X announced the renewal, “Prime Video confirms season three of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Acclaimed directors Charlotte Brändström, Sanaa Hamri, and Stefan Schwartz set for upcoming season.”
Head of Television at Amazon MGM Studios Vernon Davis commented on the renewal in a press release, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power continues to captivate audiences worldwide, and we're thrilled that a third season is underway. The creative team has an extraordinary vision of what’s to come with stories that have left us enchanted and enthralled.”
He added, “We look forward to continuing this epic journey, for our global customers, delving even deeper into the legendary tales that shaped Middle-earth.”
The renewal comes as the show has bled viewership during both season 1 and season 2.
Back in April 2023, Kim Masters at The Hollywood Reporter reported that 63% of people who watched part of the first season in the United States did not finish it.
She wrote, “While Amazon, like other streamers, provides only limited data — and internally, it held information even more closely than usual on the series — sources confirm that The Rings of Power had a 37 percent domestic completion rate (customers who watched the entire series).”
For those outside the United States, the completion rate was higher. Masters shared, “Overseas, it reached 45 percent. (A 50 percent completion rate would be a solid but not spectacular result, according to insiders).”
That report would appear to bear fruit as multiple data analytics companies noted that Season 2 viewership was much lower than Season 1.
Samba TV reported that viewership in the United States for the Season 2 premiere declined by nearly 50% compared to the Season 1 premiere.
In September 2022, the firm reported that the show’s Season 1 premiere attracted 1.8 million U.S. households.
At the beginning of September following the Season 2 premiere it reported that only 902,000 U.S. households watched. That’s a decline of 49.8%.
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It was not just Samba TV either. As noted by X user NowItsKnown, Nielsen reported back in 2022 that the show’s two-episode premiere raked in 1.253 billion minutes watched.
With the Season 2 three-episode premiere it only brought in 1.015 billion minutes watched.
If you do a simple calculation where you divide the total minutes watched by the total run time, it gives you 9.4 million for the first season and 4.9 million views for the second season. That’s a decline of 47%.
That trend continued with the season finales as well. The week the Season 2 finale aired saw the show’s total minutes only bring in about half of the week when the Season 1 finale aired.
The Season 1 finale brought in 1.137 billion minutes watched while the Season 2 finale only did 527 million minutes watched. That’s a decline of 53.6%.
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Of note, those viewership numbers are on par with Lucasfilm’s The Acolyte that was scrapped after its first season due to poor viewership. Nielsen reported that the week The Acolyte’s finale aired it only brought in 335 million minutes watched. If you do a simple run-time calculation that comes to around 6.8 million views given the final episode had a run time of 49 minutes.
The Rings of Power Season 2 finale did marginally better. A simple run time calculation for the week of its finale comes out to 7.12 million views given its finale had a run time of 74 minutes.
The official renewal is not all that surprising given Amazon MGM Studios boss Jennifer Salke was asked by Variety back in October 2024 if there would be a change to the 50-episode commitment.
She answered, “I don’t think so. [That] commitment is never the thing that’s driving what we’re doing. We’ll continue to make the show as long as we see global customers loving it and watching it to the point where — it is a business.”
“Obviously, we need a large amount of people showing up. And there are a large amount of people, so there’s no debate about whether or not the show will continue,” she claimed.
Furthermore, Showrunner Patrick McKay had informed YouTube channel Rings and Realms that he was already working on a third season.
He said, “We’re writing Season 3 and there’s a lot happening in Númenor.”
What do you make of Amazon greenlighting a third season of the show despite it’s massive decline in viewership?
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I have never watched a single episode.