Even by the busy standards of OTT releases, 2022 was a packed year, not least because it featured a headline battle between two franchises for the right to be the number one international fantasy show on OTT. According to the ‘Streaming Originals in India: The 2022 Story’ report released by Ormax Media, the fantasy feud was won by House of the Dragon (Disney+ Hotstar), part of the Game of Thrones franchise, in terms of viewership, and by The Rings of Power (Prime Video), part of The Lord of the Rings franchise, in terms of love from audience. Marvel’s Moon Knight (Disney+ Hotstar) also enjoyed great success in 2022, performing well across both metrics for international shows on Indian OTT platforms.

For its viewership calculations, Ormax uses primary data gathered on a weekly basis, where only those who have seen one full episode of a show are counted as its audience. For assessing the content and how it is appreciated and sorted in the rankings of most-liked shows, Ormax deploys a specialised metric of Ormax Power Rating (OPR), which combines sampling and completion rates along with a variety of other data points to rate a show on a scale of 1 to 100.

House of the Dragon: The most-watched international show in India

With a staggering viewership of 28.2 million, House of the Dragon was comfortably adjudged as the international show grabbing the most eyeballs on OTT in 2022. Its viewership was 6.2 million more than The Rings of Power, which languished in third, behind Moon Knight, which garnered 23.4 million viewers.

The rest of the top five saw a significant fall in viewership from the top three, with Ms. Marvel (Disney+ Hotstar) in fourth place registering 15.1 million viewers, and Season 3 of The Boys (Prime Video) completing the top five with 14. 2 million viewers. Somewhat surprisingly, Season 4 of Stranger Things (Netflix), part of one of the most-talked about franchises in history, could only rise to sixth place on the list, with a total of 13.2 million viewers.

Stranger Things: The most-liked international show in India

What the latest season of Stranger Things lacked in numbers, it more than made up for in audience appreciation. Ormax’s OPR gave it a score of 76, four clear of The Rings of Power in second, as well as the second-highest overall, behind seasons four and five of Money Heist (Neftlix).

House of the Dragon ended as the third most-liked international show of 2022 with an OPR of 71, good enough to see off 1899 (Netflix) and Moon Knight, which rounded off the top five with scores of 69 and 67, respectively.