Nielsen Streaming Ratings: Netflix’s Manifest Soars Back to No. 1 with the Debut of Season 3

(Image credit: Warner Bros. TV)

Nine days after the third season of Manifest appeared on Netflix, the supernatural drama was the most watched program on the four biggest domestic subscription streaming services, attracting 1.388 billion viewing minutes during the week of Aug. 23-29, according to Nielsen.

For five consecutive weeks—from the week of June 14 until the week of July 5—Manifest took the No. 1 spot on Nielsen’s weekly SVOD rankings. In fact, during the week ending June 20, Netflix’s off-net run of the cancelled NBC drama garnered a whopping 2.49 billion viewing minutes, marking the best one-week audience performance of the year among the four U.S. streaming platforms Nielsen tracks, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Disney Plus.

Nielsen Streaming Ratings August 23-29 — (Image credit: Nielsen)

The first two seasons of Manifest debuted on Netflix on June 10, just days before NBC pulled the plug. The show’s audience performance finally dropped out of Nielsen’s weekly top 10 in mid-August … right before Netflix agreed to produce a fourth season of the Warner Bros. TV series, while also acquiring immediately rights to streaming the third season of the show.

That third season dropped on Netflix August 21, vaulting the show back to the top of the rankings.

Also read: How NBCU Badly Misplayed Its Hand with 'Manifest'

Meanwhile, after just five days on Netflix, limited series Clickbait took the No. 2 spot with 912 million viewing minutes. The eight-episode series follows a family man who is kidnapped and appears online holding a sign that says, “I abuse women. At 5 million views, I die.” The series stars Adrian Grenier, Zoe Kazan and Betty Gabriel and was created by Tony Ayres and Christian White.

Nielsen Streaming Ratings - Original Series August 23-29 — (Image credit: Nielsen)

Disney Plus’ Cruella—the live-action prequel to the Disney animated classic 101 Dalmatians— took the No. 3 ranking with 815 million viewing minutes. That’s up by 535 million viewing minutes from the week Cruella was released on Disney’s “Premiere Access” streaming window on May 28. Premiere Access titles cost Disney Plus subscribers an additional $30 to watch.

Emma Stone stars in the origin story of Cruella de Vil, which was released into the free-with-subscription window Disney Plus on August 27. Thus far, Cruella has earned just over $233 million in global box office.

In August, it was announced that Stone will star in Cruella 2, with Disney recalibrating the deal to be less reliant on box office receipts and account more for video streaming.

Nielsen Streaming Ratings - Movies August 23-29 — (Image credit: Nielsen)

Netflix’s Sweet Girl was the only other film to make Nielsen’s top 10 list during the week ending August 29. The revenge thriller starring Marisa Tomei and Jason Momoa garnered 519 million viewing minutes putting it in the No. 8 spot.

Sweet Girl, which was released on August 20, features Momoa as a grieving husband who vows to find his wife’s killers.

Notably, Netflix original youth drama Outer Banks, which had led the previous two weeks, dropped out of the top 10.