The Rings of Power Beats House of the Dragon Again in Streaming Rankings

Nielsen has announced their latest streaming metrics, this time for the week of September 12 to 18, 2022, and with it confirmed that Amazon Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is still outperforming House of the Dragon in terms of streaming numbers. According to the latest data, The Rings of Power was streamed over 988 million minutes within that timeframe while House of The Dragon was watched over 960 million minutes in the same window. The distance between the two shows appears to be shrinking, especially when comparing earlier data, but The Lord of the Rings remains on top. Or does it?

It's worth noting that while House of the Dragon has slightly lower streaming numbers than Rings of Power but that doesn't encompass all of its viewership. The series technically airs on HBO prior to streaming on HBO Max (which happens simultaneously with its television premiere) and with its streaming and cable numbers added together it almost certainly exceeds The Rings of Power in total viewership. Interest in the Game of Thrones prequel series has also increased over time, it will be a while before we can see how the two stack up in the end.

What's better, House of the Dragon or The Rings of Power?

Considering the two highly anticipated fantasy shows premiered very close to each other, it's hard to note have some comparison between the two. As of this writing, House of the Dragon has an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (with an 84% Audience Rating) and The Rings of Power has an 84% approval rating on the review aggregator (with a 38% Audience Rating, which should largely be discarded). So which one should you watch? Just as it is with all things, it's up to what you like. Do you prefer more grim fantasy with a George R. R. Martin-like level of violence? Or do you prefer the whimsical storytelling of J.R.R. Tolkien? Luckily there's an option for either.

"So many people have grown up with this literature, and we wanted this series to pay it forward for new generations of Tolkien lovers," Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke previously told Variety. "The line we've been using is 'If you're old enough to read the books, you're old enough to watch the show.' We knew from the beginning that this was not our Game of Thrones."