Ozark was nearly usurped in the streaming wars battle by a somewhat unexpected Prime Video contender.
According to the newest Nielsen Top 10 streaming list rankings, backdated to the week running January 31 to February 6, the Netflix show was pushed hard by Reacher in the battle for viewers' attention.
Reacher, the Alan Ritchson-starring Prime Video TV series, only debuted on Amazon's streaming platform on Friday, February 4. After it accrued an eye-watering 1.84 billion minutes viewed in its first 72 hours on the service, Reacher unexpectedly found itself competing with Ozark season 4 at the top end of Nielsen's weekly rankings.
For comparison, Ozark accumulated a total of 2.37 billion minutes viewed. Reacher, then, was still lagging behind its fellow crime thriller by almost 500 million minutes early last month. But, given Ozark's popularity and established fanbase, the fact that Reacher got within relative touching distance shows how close it came to claiming Ozark's streaming crown.
It's unclear if Reacher will continue to cement its place in the Nielsen Top 10 rankings. We'll know for sure once the next set of data is released, but it's evident that the show has resonated with fans. That goes for Amazon Studios, too, which recently renewed Reacher for a second season.