Rings Of Power: Amazon's ultra-expensive LOTR show had staggeringly low viewers

Some series grab the attention of fans from beginning to end, but when it comes to Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, less than half its viewership left before the end.

The original TV series, which cost over $450 million to make, saw only 37 percent of episode one viewers turn up for the finale – considering Amazon Prime aims to reach at least 50 percent for a show of that size, it would seem the hype wasn’t real.

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Head of Amazon Studios, Jennifer Salke, is behind this turbulent cycle of spending too much and gaining little returns. An inside source had this to say: “They don’t learn from their mistakes. They say ‘we can’t do any more deals like that,’ you turn around and they’re right back to – the impolite term is ‘star-f**king.”

Given the competitiveness of streaming services, which has grown in the last year due to subscription price hikes, Amazon’s eagerness to secure a solid money maker is understandable. Unfortunately, it seems their tactics for ensuring they make that desirable profit are misplaced. Another inside source, this time a former Amazon executive, revealed that original content from inside the studio is hard to come-by. “They say, ‘we don’t want to buy from outside studios,’ then packages come and they buy everything that comes through the door, and our development is thrown out.”

Rings of Power isn’t the only series to have cost Amazon more than they’d care to admit, though it is their most expensive show to date; Daisy Jones & The Six also had a staggering budget, this time of $140 million. And while the show won over audiences, according to The Hollywood Reporter, it wasn’t the “breakout hit” they’d all been hoping for.

But Salke herself paints a very different picture, saying that “this desire to paint the show as anything less than a success — it’s not reflective of any conversation I’m having internally”. Adding that the second series of Rings of Power is providing Amazon with a “huge opportunity”, building upon the foundations of the first season, which “required a lot of setting up”.

Although establishing new lore is undoubtedly tricky and costly, compared with Disney+, and Netflix, Amazon is desperately lagging behind. If you look at the 2022 Nielsen data The Hollywood Reporter cites, the top 10 shows of that year all belonged to Netflix – that’s pretty gutting for Amazon.

Who knows, maybe the second series of Rings of Power will save the day, but I hope Amazon isn’t holding their breath…