Evidenced by the fact that the release of episodes led to a record number of sign-ups for Showtime and its Anytime streaming service, “Twin Peaks: The Return” is clearly igniting big interest.
It did not, however, draw big ratings on traditional television.
According to live+same-day data posted by Showbuzz, Sunday’s back-to-back “Twin Peaks: The Return” episodes averaged a 0.15 adults 18-49 rating and 0.51 million overall viewers.
Below the episodic average posted by season three of fellow Showtime series “The Affair” (and substantially below numbers for shows like “Homeland,” “Shameless,” and “Billions”), the figures are certainly nothing about which to write home.
Live+same-day numbers, however, only tell a small part of the story for Showtime series. Subscribers to premium networks like Showtime and HBO tend to rely heavily on streaming, on-demand and encores to watch shows. The first two “Twin Peaks: The Return” episodes will obviously reach far more than a half-million viewers when all is said and done.
Showtime has already made the next two parts available for streaming. That availability will bottleneck next week’s live+same-day television viewership, so we won’t have a good reading on whether the show is “hooking” viewers until later in the season.
