Preacher Fans Spread the Gospel

Lightbox’s Preacher has become the most talked about TV show in NZ digital and social media circles after Game of Thrones.

Within a couple of days of going live on the streaming platform, it had notched up 461,923 “demand expressions”.

That’s the term for a new form of multi-platform data analysis, undertaken by Kiwi start-up Parrot Analytics, that measures a programme’s online streams, downloads, mentions in social media and online searches.

The result is an aggregated “in-demand” measure of a show’s popularity, regardless of whether it is primarily available via traditional free or pay TV, or subscription video services.

Lightbox today announced Preacher had rocketed to the top two most-talked about shows in New Zealand, with 460,000 of Parrot Analytics’ demand expressions compared to 1.17 million for Game of Thrones (which is in its sixth season).

Two other Lightbox exclusives —  Outlander and Vikings — also made the top 10.

Sky accounted for four of the rest and TVNZ for two, including The Voice (US), which recently was pulled from primetime.

Also in the top 10 was the US version of Dancing With the Stars, which isn’t broadcast or streamed here — but the season finale of which generated enough demand expressions to rank ninth.

Lightbox CEO Kym Niblock says the figures show that streaming is rapidly becoming the new normal for many New Zealanders.

“When three of the top 10 TV shows are only available online and together make up nearly one million online views and interactions by New Zealanders, you know people’s behaviour is changing.

“These new figures from Parrot really reinforce what we’ve been seeing – Kiwis are abandoning traditional TV viewing habits as online options like Lightbox become easier to use and have content that people want to watch.

“We’re blown away with New Zealand’s reception to Preacher – not only is it receiving much critical acclaim, but it’s clearly struck a chord with a huge number of New Zealanders.”