13 minutes ago, Samt said:

The intention was to use the name and proper nouns from WoT to make up a story.   Maybe you think it's a good story.  But it's not a good WoT series because it's only tangentially connected to actual WoT.  

It is far more than “tangentially connected”. The fact that you hate the changes doesn’t mean that the overall story has been fundamentally altered. 

17 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

 

I do not think the intent was to make a good WoT series.

This is laughable. Of course they wanted to make a good WoT series. Whether they succeeded or not is a matter of opinion, but they clearly didn’t set out to make a flop. 

Just now, Jaccsen said:

 

Unfortunately, the ratings info suggests they underperformed on audience size. The show would have had higher numbers if they chased the book audience.

I’m not sure this tracks. The ratings information we have available shows WoT as comparable to other fantasy shows. You can certainly make the case that it’s not had the ROI Amazon wants, given the expense (a question that will be answered by the decision whether to green light Season 4), but the idea that it’s been some sort of ratings disaster is vastly overstated. 
 

It also bears repeating that the ratings information available to us does not reflect the international market, about which Amazon cares a great deal. 

24 minutes ago, muddasssir said:

I am sorry but it is people like you and if Jason is still running this website. Him allowing people like you to run amok is the reason people like me do not come back to this site. There is something to be said about moderation, but the way you guys decide everything in a high handed manner is unacceptable. I came here today after years because I was depressed. Now, you have made me suicidal angry thanks mate

First, if you are truly contemplating self harm, please seek help. 
 

Second, I’m not sure what I’ve decided or how I’ve been “high handed”. I asked a simple question. 

5 hours ago, books of Robert Jordan said:

Nielsen, Jan 22 – 28

 

 

What were the WOT numbers?

Wow! The show opens 2024 on a hot streak! I think the rumors of its demise have been somewhat exaggerated. 

47 minutes ago, Skipp said:

Characters in WoT stating things as fact when they have imperfect information, that could never happen 😉

Definitely never happened in the novels. Not even once. 😜

Just now, Goathill said:

In the first minute of the show it says the Dragon could be a man or a woman.

 

So your definition of grasp seems a little off.

And yet, if you actually watch the show, it becomes clear that the Aes Sedai have it all wrong by thinking that. The opening narration is wrong because the narrator is unreliable. 

26 minutes ago, Goathill said:

any WoT adaptation that cannot grasp that the Dragon/Lews Therin a man that uses Saidin is a constant in each turning has lost the plot and is no longer in the world of WoT.

It’s a good thing the show does grasp that fact, I guess. 

1 minute ago, Samt said:

Not even breaking 1 million viewers in 3 months

That’s horribly inaccurate. The numbers being included here exclude the people who watched while the show was airing. 
Those numbers were obviously much higher in the weeks that it was airing. 
 

Secondly, you’re getting the equivalent of 80k series views per week. But that assumes that all those are watching both seasons. Certainly some are people who watched season one and just returned for S2 once the whole thing dropped. So it could be up to 160k views of S2. 
 

Third, these are US numbers only. 
 

Finally, books sold is a pretty meaningless comparison. 

16 minutes ago, Samt said:

I don't think you are doing the math correctly.  The figure as I understand it is 80 million minutes, not 80 million episode views.  

 

There are 16 episodes in the series and approximately 60 minutes per episode.  Thus, 960 minutes per series view.  80M minutes is thus only slightly more than 80,000 series views (per week).

Yeah. I think you’re right about my math being off. 80k series views per week over 12 weeks is 960k series views in the 3 months following the full release. Still not too shabby for the US alone. 

19 minutes ago, Samt said:

That is not nothing, but hardly a tentpole.

That’s moving the goalposts though, because no one is arguing that it’s a “tentpole”. Only that it’s not the disaster that some are claiming. 

Just now, Mailman said:

You responded too Jaccsen yesterday about the 5.9 million viewers.

 

I was adding some perspective to the numbers you posted and showing that they are probably not too separate to those posted by Jaccsen.

 

There are rewatch parties organized on twitter by various parties (including DM i think) I see multiple people saying they have watched episodes multiple times and I have often rewatched previous seasons prior to new seasons for shows that I have enjoyed. This IMO would have been particularly prevalent considering the extended break between season 1 and 2 for WoT.

You’re correct. I was mixing up that number with 2 million which was mentioned earlier. 
 

Even so, that six million is only over the three months following the full release. That doesn’t include the numbers during the actual run of season 2.

There was only one week where viewership dropped below 80M minutes, and that was the week of Thanksgiving. That means you’re getting the equivalent of 5 million series views per week. Even if you say 10% of that figure is repeat viewers (which I think is way too high), that’s still 4 million new viewers per week. 
 

And that’s just in the US. That really can’t  be considered a “failure”. 

1 hour ago, Mailman said:

If you divide it by the full 16 episodes its close to the 6 million viewers number listed above.

Where was 6 million mentioned? I must have missed that.

1 hour ago, Mailman said:

This is obviously not the case there would be considerable S1 rewatches and multiple rewatches from dedicated fans contained in those numbers.

We are talking about the 3 month period following the release of S2E8, so why should we assume “considerable S1 rewatches” took place during that stretch? Similarly, why should we assume “multiple rewatches” of S2 took place over that time period? Those seem like unfounded assumptions without data to support them. 

Putting some of this into perspective:

Based on @books of Robert Jordan's numbers as posted here, between October 23, 2023 and December 24, 2023, viewers watched 1.65 billion minutes of the Wheel of Time which works out to just over 103 million episodes watched in the 3 full months following the full release of season 2.

That's not bad. 

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

Going off of @Jaccsen's post.  Don't know if they are correct or not, but as you didn't disagree with that portion of the post I assumed that the drop was real...

Yeah, I’m not sure where he is coming up with those numbers. 

5 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

True, but I doubt that Amazon would consider an almost 30% drop in viewership a success.

Where’s the 30% drop number coming from? I don’t understand the math. 

7 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

These boards also seem fairly dead which also shows a lack of general engagement with the TV show.

Or it’s indicative of the fact that the show is in a hiatus right now and people are tired of rehashing the same topics. It will pick up as S3 approaches. 

14 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

That is not a success and 5.9 million viewers does not justify the cost of the show.

You have literally no idea what metrics Amazon uses to determine whether the show is a “success” or what they take into account when deciding whether the cost of the show is justified. 

17 hours ago, Jimmyr90 said:

They already did it wrong having min be a dark friend,

Min isn’t a dark friend. She’s being manipulated by one. Big difference. 

Margo Martindale. 

2 hours ago, Samt said:

Matt, Rand, Min, Egwene, Nynaeve, Perrin, Lan, Moiraine, Thom.  Name a character whose fundamental character arc hasn't been foundationally transformed.  

 

Edit: Also Siuan.  Aviendha.

I will give you Min, Lan and Moiraine. But the EFF are on the same arcs as the books. The others are being adapted to allow for and help create a more intimate, less epic telling of the story. 

On 11/8/2023 at 12:07 PM, merlinfire said:

Fundamental character arcs have been completely transformed, often with even the core themes of those arcs completely changed. 

Give me an example of a major character whose “fundamental character arc” has been “completely transformed”. 

2 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

https://www.wotseries.com/2023/02/06/the-wheel-of-time-season-3-first-director-revealed/

 

Just checked it out rather than spreading baseless information from something that may or may not be true. But it certainly seems to be. 

It’s definitely true. Donnelly has 3 episodes in S3. Good news for people who are looking for better action scenes. 

4 minutes ago, books of Robert Jordan said:

To quote Dr. Leonard McCoy...

S1:  467 min (7),    638 min (8)

S2:  416 min (15),  430 min (16)

I don’t understand what you’re trying to say…

35 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

Rand learns it for men although I can't remember if it is through recovered memories, something he observes the forsaken do, or something that Asmodean teaches him.

Rand does it by accident the first time. It’s when he ends up alone with Avi 

1 hour ago, BookMattBetterThanShow said:

Guess I should just not make comments on how I see things.

Please don't walk away with that impression. Your comments are welcome and appreciated.