Part 5/10:
Further evidence of the show's struggles comes from piracy data, an often-overlooked but revealing metric of audience demand. A well-regarded data analytics company, Muso Tracks, analyzed piracy trends related to both House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power.
The results were quite revealing: during the first week after release, House of the Dragon experienced 45% more piracy than The Rings of Power for Episode 1, and this gap widened to 127% by Episode 2. Interestingly, this suggests that many viewers who initially sampled The Rings of Power may have decided it wasn’t worth watching further—either due to dissatisfaction or boredom—and chose to avoid legal or illegal viewing altogether.