‘The Bear’ Season 3 Premiere Viewership Was Great — Just Not as Great as a Random Week for 2 Old Showtime Series

Finally: Nielsen's numbers for the "The Bear" Season 3's premiere week are in.

Da Bear.

FX made the third season of “The Bear” available in its entirety on Hulu on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, just as it did for seasons 1 and 2 of the show about a Chicago sandwich spot turned fine-dining establishment. Getting people to scarf down the whole meal in one sitting worked — in the short term.

Nielsen’s streaming data for the week of June 24-30 finally caught up to those of us existing in the present on Thursday. No shade: That’s the TV-ratings currency company’s typical delay in streaming measurement. (OK, so a little shade.)

Nielsen says “The Bear” was streamed for 1.2 billion viewing minutes over its first five days, and that two-thirds of its audience were between the ages of 18 and 49. That is traditionally the coveted demographic for advertisers — especially for those advertising on linear TV (like the FX cable channel, though “The Bear” has always aired just on FX on Hulu, never on FX the channel).

The 1.2 billion minutes streamed made “The Bear” the top original streaming program, but it was not #1 overall.

It would have been, if not for the pesky “Your Honor” (1.6 billion viewing minutes) and “Dexter” (1.5 billion minutes). The two over-and-done-with Showtime dramas both now stream on Netflix and Paramount+, though Netflix is really the only difference-maker. Both had two extra days of availability vs. “The Bear” Season 3; Advantage: Not “The Bear.”

“Your Honor” (2020-2023) had a “broader appeal” than “Dexter,” Nielsen said. Viewers were more diverse — and older. “Dexter” mainly reached viewers 18-34, which is the core streaming demo.

The Bryan Cranston breaks bad (but as a judge) series had way more actual viewers than “Dexter” (2006-2013) — but “Dexter” has about five times the number of available episodes as “The Bear” and roughly three-and-a-half times as many episodes as “Your Honor.”

The entire eight-season “Dexter” library joined Netflix on June 19; Nielsen’s top 10 counts the weekly viewership of every episode across any season.

Weeks ago, Disney announced that “The Bear” Season 3 (alone) drew 5.4 million viewers over its first four days. That’s the best start in Hulu’s history for a scripted series.

This isn’t “Your Honor’s” first trip to the bench the podium. It was number 1 weeks earlier, before “Bridgerton” Season 3 took it down a peg. That’s OK; “Bridgerton” Season 3 is taking a lot of shows down a lot of pegs.

“Dexter” rebooted as limited series “Dexter: New Blood” in 2021. It provided a second swing at a historically bad series finale. A prequel series to “Dexter” is underway.

Here are Nielsen’s top 10 original streaming programs during the week of June 24, 2024:

And the overall Top 10 streaming programs for the week, which includes both original and acquired programming: