{"id":435925,"date":"2026-01-29T01:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/435925\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T01:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:46:07","slug":"9-million-viewers-and-counting-hbo-max-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/435925\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Million Viewers and Counting, HBO Max Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSince it premiered on HBO Max<\/a> in late November, Heated Rivalry<\/a> has rocketed with the force of a blue-line slap shot into the pop culture consciousness. It has spurred countless edits and fan posts on social media and made overnight sensations of stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s also drawing in a large audience: According to HBO\u2019s first-party data, Heated Rivalry is averaging 9 million viewers per episode in the United States, a number that will continue to grow for several more weeks (HBO and HBO Max measure viewing for 90 days after a season premiere). That puts the series in the upper echelon of HBO Max shows. HBO Max and Crave, the Canadian outlet that commissioned the show based on Rachel Reid\u2019s romance novel, quickly ordered a second season<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tOne place Heated Rivalry hasn\u2019t yet shown up, however, is in Nielsen\u2019s streaming charts. The ratings provider has released data for all five weeks of the show\u2019s run, but in none of those did the series crack the top 10. <\/p>\n

\n\tSo what gives? While there are some differences in how HBO and Nielsen collect their viewing data, the most likely explanation lies in how Nielsen classifies the show for its streaming rankings and Heated Rivalry\u2019s release schedule.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince it originated with Crave, Heated Rivalry is considered an acquired series, rather than an original show, in Nielsen\u2019s streaming charts \u2014 and the bar for making the top 10 acquired series is consistently a good bit higher than it is for the original series rankings.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe streaming charts are ranked by total viewing time for all episodes of a series. In the five weeks Heated Rivalry was streaming new episodes (two on Nov. 28, then one per week through Dec. 26), the 10th-place show in the acquired show rankings averaged about 565 million minutes of watch time. By comparison, the No. 10 spot among original streaming shows over those weeks averaged 363 million minutes of viewing \u2014 a nearly 56 percent difference. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe acquired series chart is also dominated by shows with huge libraries \u2014\u00a0think Grey\u2019s Anatomy and NCIS, each of which have more than 450 episodes \u2014 all available for streaming. Heated Rivalry\u2019s weekly release and small episode count also put it at a disadvantage among acquired shows. It\u2019s hardly unheard of for an HBO show to make the acquired series rankings in its first season \u2014\u00a0but they have tended to be shows like House of the Dragon and The Last of Us, with huge production and marketing budgets and based on extremely well-known IP. <\/p>\n

\n\tReid\u2019s books have been bestsellers and have avid followings, but the growth of Heated Rivalry has been much more organic. HBO Max acquired U.S. rights<\/a> to the the show just nine days before it premiered, leaving precious little time to mount a promo campaign. Which makes the show\u2019s 9 million-and-counting viewers all the more remarkable. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since it premiered on HBO Max in late November, Heated Rivalry has rocketed with the force of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,1010,162094,67239,92,9611],"class_list":{"0":"post-435925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-hbo-max","10":"tag-heated-rivalry","11":"tag-streaming-ratings","12":"tag-tv","13":"tag-tv-ratings"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}