It’s the Quenchiest: How Huge is Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix?
by Katarzyna Weyna.
Key findings
- Despite being a 17-year-old show, Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) performed exceptionally well on Netflix in the United States last year, with viewership numbers comparable to Netflix originals like Jupiter’s Legacy.
- ATLA has devoted fan bases in Canada, Germany, and Belgium. Last year, the audiences in these markets spent between 472 and 511 minutes on average watching the series. However, the show did significantly worse in Japan and South Korea.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender is a bingeable series. More than 55% of Unique Viewers (UV) tend to watch at least 2 or more episodes in one go; over 38% of UV watched at least 3 episodes or more.
- Another popular Nickelodeon show, Spongebob Squarepants, kept audiences engaged for longer than ATLA in Canada, Germany, and Japan, but its Unique Viewer numbers were comparable.
Introduction
Animated series have the most devoted fan bases on Netflix — the fans who’ll renew their monthly subscription just to be able to rewatch their favorite episodes over and over…and over again. Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) is no exception. Its massive popularity with fans is even reflected in its number 8 position on IMDB’s Top Rated TV Shows ranker.
In February 2021, Nickelodeon announced the launch of Avatar Studios, a production company that will focus solely on creating content from the Avatar universe. In 2022, three new movies from the worlds of ATLA and its sequel, Legend of Korra, were announced, with the first one to be released in 2025.
Recently, Nickelodeon confirmed that ATLA and The Legend of Korra will both be leaving Netflix at some point “down the line” to find a home on Paramount+, the streaming service of Nickelodeon’s owner, Paramount Global. In response, Netflix has started work on its own original live-action adaptation of the franchise.
In this report, we’re going to take a closer look at Avatar’s performance on Netflix in the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, and Belgium using our Unique Viewer (UV) and Total Hours Watched (THW) metrics. How popular is ATLA in each market? Does it matter that the show is leaving Netflix?
Avatar: The Last Airbender is an American animation series co-created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studios. It consists of three seasons, which originally aired between 2005 and 2008. Since May 15, 2020, the show has been available on Netflix in the United States, and as early as 2018 in Canada and Germany.
The animation is set in an Asia-inspired world where some people are able to control (or bend) one of the four elements: water, air, fire, and earth. The story revolves around a young boy named Aang, or the Avatar, who has the ability to bend all four elements. His extraordinary abilities make him “the chosen one” who was born to maintain harmony in the world.
The United States: A Mighty Avatar Fanbase
First, let’s take a look at ATLA’s yearly performance on Netflix in the United States, where we noticed a dedicated fanbase in the millions consistently consuming episodes throughout the year:
Avatar: The Last Airbender, Monthly Unique Viewers
May 2021 — May 2022
United States
Top Content on Netflix
May 2021 — May 2022
United States
What’s more, with almost 155M Total Hours Watched (THW), Avatar jumped into the big leagues — beating out record-setting movies like Red Notice, Don’t Look Up, The Adam Project, and The Mitchells vs. the Machines — all of which crowded out our Top 10 list. And, while a series-to-movies comparison admittedly isn’t apples-to-apples, Avatar did come close to one “series” on the list, CoComelon (166.82M THW).
CoComelon episodes consist of highly-rewatchable traditional nursery rhymes and original children’s songs, packaged together as series on Netflix. While CoComelon had almost double the number of Unique Viewers (45M UVs to Avatar’s 21M UV), it had just 12M more Total Hours Watched (THW). In fact, each Avatar viewer spent 428 minutes on average on the series between May 2021– May 2022 compared to just 224 minutes on average for CoComelon audiences. This is quite a feat for ATLA, a 17-year-old show that originally premiered on Nickelodeon on February 21, 2005.
Avatar Fans Around the World: Canada, Germany, Belgium, and Japan
Now let’s take a look at how ATLA performed in Canada, Germany, Belgium, and Japan — where we noticed smaller but still mighty levels of fan engagement across both the UV and the THW metrics:
Avatar: The Last Airbender, Monthly Unique Viewers
May 2021 — May 2022
Canada, Germany, Belgium
We can see that Avatar did very well in Belgium, Canada, and Germany. In Germany, Avatar saw a peak of over 383,100 UVs, and, in Canada the series broke the 250,00 UV mark. In Belgium, Avatar consistently had approximately 50,000 UVs tuning in each month, or a 6.11% Share of Viewing (SoV).
When it comes to Total Hours Watched (THW), Avatar also performed well: Belgium, 3.0M THW; Canada, 12.9M THW; and Germany, 23.6M THW. What this means is that, like in the United States, Avatar has a devoted fan base that is regularly gravitating toward this content. On average, each market also saw a similar level of Average Time Spent (ATS): Belgium and Canada: 472 minutes ATS; and Germany 511 minutes ATS.
Yet ATLA was not very popular in Japan, where it landed far down in 1,512th place (our data for South Korea also shows similar results), with a peak of only 17,500 UVs in July 2021. One explanation could be the abundance of high-quality animation series made domestically in Japan that succeed in drawing away viewers’ attention:
Avatar: The Last Airbender, Monthly Unique Viewers
May 2021 — May 2022
Japan
How Bingeable is Avatar?
Since animated series are often short episodes, and Avatar clocks in at 23 minutes per episode on average, we had to ask: Is ATLA a “bingeable” show?
Avatar: The Last Airbender, Binge Watching Report
May 2021 — May 2022
United States
Our data shows that over 38% of Unique Viewers (UV) watched at least 3 episodes of the series in one go, whereas over 4% consumed 10 or more episodes in a single sitting. Our theory is that the masterfully crafted story, the great character building, and Apa the Flying Bison all worked to keep audiences engaged with the series.
Avatar vs. Spongebob: Who has more fans?
We also had to ask: how does Avatar perform in comparison to another well-known Nickelodeon franchise, Spongebob Squarepants? Spongebob was created by Stephen Hillenburg, an American animator, and marine science educator, and revolves around the title character and an ensemble cast of his aquatic friends.
The show first premiered on Nickelodeon on July 17, 1999, and the initial demographic was children. But Spongebob’s popularity quickly spread to teenagers, college students, and adults worldwide. In a 2007 interview with TV Guide, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama even named ‘SpongeBob’ as his favorite TV character of all time, saying “SpongeBob is the show I watch with my daughters.”
Spongebob was renewed for season 14 in March 2022, and as of October 14, 2022, has 278 episodes. Although it’s been unavailable in the United States, a few other Netflix markets are carrying seasons 4, 8, and 9.
Let’s take a look at Spongebob’s viewership numbers in Canada, Germany, and Japan during the same time period, May 2021 to May 2022.
Spongebob Squarepants, Monthly Unique Viewers
May 2021 — May 2022
Canada, Germany, Japan
Per our reports, Spongebob did well in Germany, breaking the 1.2M UV mark in October 2021, which is over three times more than ATLA’s peak during the same period. In Canada, the numbers were wavering between 300K and 500K Unique Viewers. In Japan, the show performed markedly better than ATLA, appearing in 182nd place in the market’s Top 200 Series Ranking.
Plum data for Avatar: The Last Airbender and Spongebob Squarepants show that some animated series are doing very well on Netflix, regardless of their original release date, often beating out new and widely promoted content in the rankings. What’s more, they number in the millions worldwide.
The audience measurement data in this article is from Showlabs.tv, developed by PlumResearch.
Interested to learn more? Click here or email us at: hello@plumresearch.com
PlumResearch specializes in precise and granular data measurement from streaming platforms. It has the world’s largest online audience panel and provides its clients with data from over 75 markets worldwide.
Through Showlabs — the proprietary platform created by PlumResearch — the company’s clients can find out how shows and movies are performing worldwide and track what exactly contributes to their success. Showlabs provides clients with accurate data, in-depth insights, and a reliable customer support team.
