Cobra Kai Has Beaten The Rings Of Power

Cobra Kai has officially been watched more than The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

By Douglas Helm | Published

Netflix’s Cobra Kai crane-kicked The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power right out of the number one streaming spot for Nielsen’s charts for September 5-11. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power fell to third place overall in the streaming charts that week, with Netflix’s Devil in Ohio taking the second-place spot. Coming in a close fourth was HBO Max’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon.

While The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power couldn’t hold on to the top spot, that doesn’t mean it didn’t put up incredibly impressive numbers that week. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power still managed to draw in viewers for a total of 1.2 billion minutes viewed. Still, it couldn’t stand up to the premiere week for the fifth season of Netflix’s Cobra Kai, which managed to tally up 1.74 billion minutes viewed across its 50 episodes.

cobra kai cast

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has plenty of time to surpass Cobra Kai again, considering it will only have seven episodes to its name so far. The newest episode hits Amazon Prime today, with the final episode of the first season hitting the streaming platform next week. Plus, to capitalize on the massive success of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the production team has already started filming for the second season.

Meanwhile, Cobra Kai has yet to officially announce plans for a sixth season. With that said, Netflix isn’t one to shy away from renewing massively popular series especially when they can bring their streaming minutes into the billions. It seems like that Cobra Kai will be back for another round, but that remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the Nielsen stats present an interesting new record for the age of streaming. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this is the first time that the charts have featured shows from four different platforms that have surpassed a billion viewing minutes in the United States. The contenders on the list (in order) are Netflix’s Cobra Kai with its 1.74 billion minutes viewed, Disney+ for the streaming debut of Thor: Love and Thunder with 1.5 billion minutes, Netflix’s Devil in Ohio with 1.38 billion minutes, Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with 1.2 billion minutes, and HBO Max’s House of the Dragon with 1.02 billion minutes.

As expected, franchises mean big numbers in the streaming age. The Karate Kid franchise, The Lord of the Rings franchise, the Game of Thrones franchise, and the MCU took up almost all five of the top slots. The rare exception was Devil in Ohio, which is about a cult and adapted from the book of the same name. It wasn’t too far below Cobra Kai despite being a limited series with only one season.

Although these streaming giants are vying against each other for the top spots, we lucky viewers don’t have to choose favorites and can just watch them all. No one who watched The Karate Kid, or The Lord of the Rings could have predicted we’d get shows with (in the case of Rings of Power) blockbuster-size budgets and multiple seasons. You can catch the latest season of Cobra Kai on Netflix and you can watch the latest episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power today.