Streaming platforms rarely, if ever, reveal official viewership numbers for movies and TV shows. However, many third-party companies attempt to estimate those figures, including Luminate, which measures projects by minutes watched or views by film, TV series or episodes.
How these companies collate this data isn't always made abundantly clear, though they typically aggregate data from a massive panel of connected TVs (CTVs) using Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology to identify what is being watched on screen.
The latest figures shared by the company reveal that Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 has accumulated 4,515,000 season views, 10,867,000 hours watched, and 652,000,000 minutes watched. In comparison, Season 1 generated 8,357,000 season views, 24,000,000 hours watched, and 1,440,004,000 minutes watched in the same timeframe.
This marks a decline of 46% in total views and 54% in total hours watched. Over the past five weeks, the numbers suggest that Daredevil: Born Again has suffered a roughly 50% decline in overall viewership on Disney+.
The reliability of these figures can be easily questioned, though it's worth noting that Daredevil: Born Again did not manage to chart in Nielsen's weekly Top 10 streaming originals during its premiere week.
Taking these numbers at face value, there has clearly been a drop in interest. The bigger question is why that's happened, and whether it will have an impact on the show's future. Season 3 is currently shooting in New York, but there's been no word on a Season 4 renewal. Despite that, the street-level corner of the MCU continues to expand with The Punisher: One Last Kill and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
It's normal for a series to lose viewers from season to season, and these are not official viewing figures. Still, Daredevil: Born Again's marketing campaign was lacking, with only one trailer released in advance (the second didn't come until roughly the halfway point of Season 2).
Ultimately, we don't know what sort of viewership Disney+ is happy with, or whether a more accurate representation of the show's success will come in the months after the finale as more fans and viewers decide to tune in. At this point, it certainly wouldn't hurt to give fans what they want by bringing the Man Without Fear to the big screen alongside Spider-Man.
Daredevil: Born Again has 91% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 89% on the fan-generated Popcornmeter. In our 8-episode review published last month, we wrote, "A brutal, relentless tour-de-force, Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is a Marvel masterstroke that sees Charlie Cox take the Man Without Fear to unprecedented heights, delivering the definitive take on Daredevil."
Daredevil: Born Again is now streaming weekly on Disney+.