Queen Bey pulled in a big crowd on Netflix with the premiere of “Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé” last month — with an audience that was overwhelmingly young, black and female, according to Nielsen.
On its premiere date (April 17), the concert film on Netflix reached 1.1 million U.S. viewers and garnered an average minute audience of 828,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. The film — following Beyoncé and her performance at 2018 Coachella, which paid homage to America’s historically black colleges and universities — received a similar average minute viewing audience over the course of the next few days heading into the April 20-21 weekend.
“Homecoming” didn’t register as big an audience as other recent, high-profile Netflix originals, including “Bird Box” (3.5 million viewers on its premiere day)and Will Smith’s “Bright” (5.4 million), as measured by Nielsen. The research firm was unable to provide estimates for other Netflix concert specials, like Bruce Springsteen’s “Springsteen on Broadway” or Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” stadium tour.
It’s worth pointing out that Nielsen’s estimates do not provide a complete picture of Netflix viewing. Nielsen’s SVOD Content Ratings cover only the U.S. and track viewing only on internet-connected TVs (excluding mobile devices and computers). Given the youth-skewing makeup of the “Homecoming” viewership, the exclusion of mobile may have resulted in a sizable undercount of the total actual audience.
What’s notable is the predominantly young, female and African-American composition of the viewers who watched the Beyoncé special.
On premiere day, the film’s audience was 63% African-American, Nielsen found. Within the first seven days of release, the “Homecoming” viewership was 55% African-American within its first seven days — higher than any other original streaming series or film tracked by Nielsen to date. “Bird Box”’s audience was the closest, with an audience that was 24% African-American. Hispanics were 15% of “Homecoming”’s audience and Asians accounted for 5% in the first seven days.
Beyoncé’s Netflix special also skewed heavily female. Within the first seven days of its premiere, the film’s audience was 70% female, more than Netflix’s “Orange Is The New Black” season 6 (66%), “House of Cards” season 6 (54%) and “Bird Box” (57%). In addition, 43% of “Homecoming”’s audience 18-34, 12% were 2-17 and 27% adults ages 35-49, according to Nielsen.
On the social front, “Homecoming” had 757,000 interactions across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter over its first week, most of which were driven by organic content. By comparison, that’s more than three times Netflix’s “Springsteen on Broadway” special (225,000 interactions across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter over its first 7 days following its Dec. 15, 2018).
Among the most-engaging pieces of social content for “Homecoming” came from Michelle Obama on Instagram, in a video congratulating Beyoncé for raising the bar as well as her celebration and promotion of diversity in the movie.
Of the 757,000 total interactions measured around “Homecoming” in the first week, 65% occurred on Twitter, 33% occurred on Instagram, and just 2% occurred on Facebook, according to Nielsen.
“Homecoming” came to Netflix under a three-project deal with Beyoncé worth $60 million, Variety reported last month. The price tag for the “Homecoming” special was around $20 million. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter is credited as executive producer, writer and director of the film.
