Amazon’s woke Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has experienced a dramatic fall-off in viewership following the recent debut of the second season, according to a new report.
An estimated 902,000 U.S. households tuned in for the first episode of the second season within four days of its debut on August 29 — down by half from the 1.8 million households that watched the first episode of the first season, within three days.
The report comes from analytics firm SambaTV and was first reported by Deadline.
Like other streamers, Amazon doesn’t release viewership metrics and so it remains unclear how exactly Rings of Power is performing with subscribers.
But the SambaTV report paints a dire picture for the series, which is rumored to have cost Amazon more than $1 billion to produce but has failed to generate much hype despite heavy promotion.
In fact, the series has alienated many loyal J.R.R. Tolkien fans as well as fans of the Peter Jackson movies who have objected to the show’s woke re-imagining of Tolkien’s world, with feminism and racial diversity taking precedence over coherent storytelling.
While there has been no official word on a third season, showrunner JD Payne has publicly stated that Amazon commissioned a “50-hour” series, or a five-season run.
Amazon had hoped Rings of Power would achieve blockbuster-series status like HBO’s Game of Thrones. But the first season failed to ignite much interest either from viewers or the entertainment news media.
As Breitbart News reported, the show lost an estimated 63 percent of its audience over the course of its first season in 2022.
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