I waited a little longer this time to talk about the Andor streaming charts performance because I didn’t just want to cover the Luminate charts, but wanted to wait for Nielsen to add at least the first three episodes so we can better compare performance of the show with previous Star Wars series. Luminate only has numbers for The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew, both of which failed to even enter the charts repeatedly, so we only have incomplete data. But with Nielsen we can see how Andor stacks up compared to all the other shows.
So how does Andor perform? Surprisingly well. So well, that for the first time in almost forever a Star Wars series made the overall top 10 on the Nielsen streaming charts with 10th place. And 4th place in the original series charts.
In fact, an additional report by Parrot Analytics about financial performance of the show tells us that Andor is, despite its exorbitant budget, still a financial success for Disney.
So let’s look at the details! Click through for more!
Success
At first, let me briefly recap the Luminate numbers, they are interesting, but since Luminate only has data for Andor season 2, Skeleton Crew and The Acolyte, with the latter two not even making the charts every week (and with Skeleton Crew being absent from the charts entirely) the numbers do not tell us all that much about comparative performance.
Week 1: 248.8 million minutes watched
Week 2: 481.3 million minutes watched
Week 3: 714.6 million minutes watched
Week 4: 701.2 million minutes watched
Week 5: 543.4 million minutes watched (this is post finale i.e. no new episodes were dropped)
Luminate gathers data from Friday through Thursday, so the pretty low week 1 numbers are mostly due to the fact that Andor only had a little more than 48 hours time to gather watchtime. At its peak Andor was the #2 streaming show on the Luminate charts in week 3. One thing is of note: it is pretty uncommon for Star Wars series to see an increase in total watchtime in week 3, all the other series like Ahsoka, or Obi-Wan Kenobi that dropped more than one episode in week 1 usually peak in week 2. Andor peaked in week 3 and in week 4, the week the finale dropped, numbers are mostly the same. And it’s even rarer for a Star Wars series to still be relatively high on the charts in the week after the finale dropped. The Mandalorian manages this usually. Most other shows drop out of the top 10 immediately after the finale.
Now of course Andor’s numbers would always be a bit higher, because three very long episodes wered dropped each week, whereas all the other shows, after week 1, released just one episode.
But since we have no historical data on Luminate for the earlier Star Wars series it makes more sense to look at Nielsen. So what are the average views for each show in week 1? Here I divide watchtime by runtime, something that is commonly done now to make shows roughly comparable and at least tries to account for runtime! So these are the Nielsen numbers converted into “views” for each show in week 1 of release!
Andor S2 week 1: 4.94 million views
Andor S1 week 1: 5.43 million views
The Acolyte week 1: 6.26 million views
Ahsoka week 1: 8.55 million views
The Book of Boba Fett week 1: 10.33 million views
Obi-Wan Kenobi week 1: 11.27 million views
The Mandalorian S3 week 1: 23.51 million views
We have no numbers for Skeleton Crew so Andor S2 in week 1 is either the second least or outright least watched Star Wars live action show ever. But compared to season 1 of Andor the numbers are pretty stable, a decline of about 500k people. Now of course Nielsen does not track phones and tablets or PCs and we do not know how much viewing habits shifted between 2022 and 2025. So maybe those device categories increased in popularity between 2022 and now.
Regardless Andor is still only appealing to a small subset of fans. And season 2 has not changed that. However, being so high on the streaming charts (and even the overall top 10 charts) is still a PR win. It’s been a long time since any Star Wars series made the general top 10 Nielsen streaming charts.
But let’s talk about that Parrot Analytics report now. They claim to know how much money Andor made Disney!
Andor made Disney about $315 million until the end of 2024
What you see here is revenue plotted over time, normalised, so each show is easily comparable. Unfortunately, Parrot Analytics only chose to compare Andor to Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett and not other shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi or even The Mandalorian.
So what exactly do you see? You can see that Andor, despite having so many less viewers than The Book of Boba Fett, still makes more money, overall. Ahsoka cannot keep up here.
But what does Parrot Analytics mean by “making money”? They claim to know about number of new subscribers added and subscriber retention, both of which are the most important metrics for any streaming show, more valuable than even sheer number of views.
The above chart means Andor added a LOT of more new subscribers and was able to keep the subscribers than something like The Book of Boba Fett or Ahsoka. And this is only for Andor season 1 and only until Q4/2024, so it does not include any 2025 data or season 2.
And while Andor was exorbitantly expensive this data means Disney still made a little money with the show at least. But most of all: Andor added more new subscribers to the service than various other shows! Add all the positive press Andor is receiving and overwhelming praise and Andor is certainly a massive PR boost for Disney.
According to Parrot Analytics, the viewership for Andor is 70% male, 30% female and skews somewhat older than most other Star Wars series, with 60% of the audience being older than 30 compared to 50% for the other shows.
Parrot Analytics also talks about “peak demand”, this is when a show not only had the most people watching something, but when it generated the most buzz (think social media and YouTube etc). And here Andor is pretty unique compared to most other shows as well:
Andor’s peak demand comes pretty late
The green dot tells you when peak demand happened. The blue bars are total season length. And you can see how, for example, peak demand for The Acolyte happened very early into its run, but that Obi-Wan Kenobi actually peaked in week 1 or so already. And you can also see that Andor’s demand (only for season 1) happened pretty late, close to the finale, about two months after the first episode dropped.
This basically is also an indicator for viewer / subscriber retention and is one reason why Parrot Analyics claims to know that Andor has better viewer retention than most other Star Wars shows.
So all in all the picture is nuanced, as always!
Yes, Andor is niche, if we talk about people reached than Andor only appeals to a small subset of fans. But: it appears a lot more people sign up to Disney+ just for Andor than for other shows, at least according to Parrot Analytics, and said people then don’t cancel their subscription mere weeks later, but stay on the service. Which means that even though Andor’s total viewership numbers are still pretty low, it can still make more money for Disney than other shows with more than double the viewership. In short: something like The Book of Boba Fett much more appealed to existing subscribers, whereas Andor attracted more new people who signed up just to see this series. And streaming services love nothing better than new subscribers, it’s a key metric that determines the fate of shows.
This explains why Disney did not bail out and canceled season 2 after season 1 (even if season 2 was already greenlit), even if basic viewership figures were pretty low compared to other Star Wars shows.
All in all Andor can be considered a success story for Disney. Not just on the PR front where all the positive and overwhelmingly positive even reviews create a lot of positive vibes. But even financially Andor is not the disaster one could have thought it is, if Parrot Analytics is to be believed. Making $315 million with season 1 until the end of 2024 is quite a bit of money, even if the budget was almost as high. But now we have season 2 added to the mix and chances are high that eventually Andor may earn Disney $700 million or more even, if season 2 earns as much money as season 1. So yes, the budget is very high for Andor, but despite all that Disney will still make money with Andor. And Andor seems to be a show that is able to attract a lot of new subscribers and then to keep them hooked.
This could very well mean Disney may make more shows like Andor after all.
The Nielsen Streaming Charts
The Luminate Streaming Charts