There’s an argument to be made for Netflix to actually listen to an outpouring of negativity and abuse for once, because the signs are there that The Witcher really is running on borrowed time.
The knives were out from the second Henry Cavill announced his departure, and they got even sharper when Liam Hemsworth was confirmed as his replacement. Throw in all eight episodes of season 3 ranking as the lowest-rated of the 24 installments produced to date, and it’s clear that things aren’t looking too rosy on the Continent.
It was recently revealed that viewing figures had plummeted by 50 percent between the first and second volumes of Cavill’s final run, but it was hard to make a definitive assessment when the data came from a third-party analytics firm. However, now that Netflix has released its own weekly Top 10, the proof is staring everyone square in the face.
When the first five chapters of season 3 debuted on the platform, they combined to be watched for 73 million hours, with Netflix designating a grand total of 15.2 million views. Fast forward a matter of weeks to the back three arriving on-demand, and those numbers have dipped significantly to 59 million hours and 7.8 million views.
Sure, you can claim that it’s down to the disparate running times given that Volume 2 is a couple of hours shorter, but it’s the view count being almost halved between the releases of The Witcher‘s third season that may be cause for concern in the boardroom.