Starfleet Academy Nielsen Ratings Show a Complete Disaster for Star Trek

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As a huge Trek fan, I was really excited about Starfleet Academy, but the initial ratings are in, and honestly, they’re not good. It looks like Paramount+’s latest effort to build out the Star Trek universe on TV isn’t exactly taking off. It’s a bit disappointing, to say the least!

Recent Nielsen data shows that Starfleet Academy didn’t appear among the top 10 most popular original streaming shows after its launch. This is particularly worrying for Paramount, considering the show is meant to be a key part of their broader Star Trek strategy.

This wasn’t a single-episode launch quietly testing the waters.

Paramount launched Starfleet Academy with a two-episode premiere, hoping to boost initial viewership and get the series off to a strong start. Despite this strategy, the show didn’t appear in Nielsen’s top ten original series during its first week.

The 343 Million Minute Benchmark

To understand the scale of the miss, it’s important to look at the entry threshold.

The song “Run Away” was tenth on the Nielsen chart that week, racking up 343 million views. This was the lowest amount of views needed to make it onto the chart.

Now compare that to Starfleet Academy’s available content at launch.

The two premiere episodes combined totaled roughly 135 minutes of runtime.

Here’s what the math looks like:

343,000,000 minutes required ÷ 135 minutes of content = 2.54 million full two-episode view-throughs

Basically, it would have taken around 2.5 million people watching the entire program just to qualify for the lowest ranking in the Nielsen Top 10.

Break that down further:

That’s about 1.27 million people watching each episode in its entirety (based on the assumption that viewers finished both parts).

Even with its famous name, a strong marketing campaign, and a two-part premiere, the new show still failed to reach even a minimal level of viewership.

A Weak Platform Debut

The Nielsen miss wasn’t the only warning sign.

I was a little disappointed to hear that Starfleet Academy didn’t launch as strongly as hoped on Paramount+. Apparently, it came in at number three on their internal charts, which isn’t a bad start, but it’s definitely not the huge debut they were expecting for what they’re building into a big franchise.

The trajectory worsened quickly.

The series quickly disappeared from the platform’s list of the ten most popular shows, replaced by older, previously released content like reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The King of Queens.

The show seems to briefly return to popularity whenever new episodes are released, but quickly fades away again. This suggests initial interest is high, but doesn’t last long.

If people were finding the show through recommendations or watching multiple episodes at once, you’d usually expect the audience to grow, particularly as new episodes become available.

Ratings Implications

Although Nielsen doesn’t share complete viewership numbers for all streaming shows, the total minutes people watch can give a good idea of how well a title is performing.

The show’s initial viewership seems fairly low, even though two episodes aired during its first week and contributed to the total viewing time. It didn’t reach the expected benchmark of 343 million minutes watched.

Based on how similar shows perform, it appears this one likely didn’t achieve a very strong debut, probably falling short of a 1.2 rating in terms of viewership.

Considering this is the start of a new series based on a well-known Paramount property, the initial viewership numbers are lower than expected for a streaming release.

Marketing Push Falls Flat

Paramount tried to boost interest and get people to subscribe by offering the first episode for free on YouTube.

Instead of generating buzz, the move created additional negative optics.

Before the video was made private, public data indicated it hadn’t gotten many views and had a lot more dislikes than likes. This suggests people either disagreed with the content or weren’t very interested, rather than being excited about it.

The episode was removed from public access, and views, likes, and other engagement numbers were hidden.

A Franchise Under Pressure

The stakes for Starfleet Academy extend beyond a single series performance.

Paramount+ is facing tough competition in the streaming market, and successful, well-known franchises are now essential for attracting and keeping subscribers – they need to perform well right from the start.

I’ve always seen Star Trek as one of the most important things CBS and Paramount have – it’s a huge collection of shows and movies built up over many years. I really believe that whenever they release something new, it’s going to get people talking, create a buzz, and keep fans watching for a long time.

Instead, the Starfleet Academy Nielsen ratings debut suggests a muted launch cycle.

The show didn’t make it into the Top 10, didn’t get enough views to qualify for the charts, performed poorly on our own platform, and quickly lost viewers after its initial release.

Taken together, the data points toward a series that has yet to find meaningful audience traction.

It’s still uncertain if viewership will improve, but early numbers from Nielsen suggest the launch of Paramount+ didn’t go as well as the company had hoped.

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2026-02-13 17:58