An estimated 200 million people worldwide have now watched portions of “The Chosen,” the popular TV series based on the life of Jesus. The show’s executive vice president of distribution and marketing recently shared those numbers with trade publication Variety.
“It took the first four years of the series to reach 100 million people,” said Kyle Young. “And then in the last 15 months, we’ve reached another 100 million people.” He credited that viewership increase to partnerships with streaming services and international distributors.
The goal, Young added, is to “get the show in front of as many people as possible.” One of the show’s nonprofit partners, the Come and See Foundation, aims to reach 1 billion people with the series. It also plans to dub the series into 100 languages and subtitle it in 500 more languages.
Awareness of ‘The Chosen’ Has Skyrocketed
The first three seasons of “The Chosen” relied on an “app-first model,” Young noted, with a quicker turn-around time to streaming for Season 3. Then Season 4 premiered in theaters, with a staggered release of eight episodes throughout February and March.
That run was extended ahead of Easter due to a delay in Season 4‘s release to streaming. The first three episodes are available on Maundy Thursday (March 28), the next three on Good Friday (March 29), and the last two on Holy Saturday (March 30).
“There’s a much higher awareness of the series now,” Young told Variety. “Some of our research shows that something like almost 50 million Americans have now sampled the show. And there’s a huge amount of retention, as [viewers] watch subsequent episodes and even the full three seasons.”
Young added, “Of course, I would say that with this director, the producers, the writers, this show is really good. The real secret here is that people really love the show.”
Working with streaming partners gets complex, Young admitted. Although a “huge appetite” for “The Chosen” exists on streaming, platforms don’t offer much promotion of a “non-exclusive licensed series” that they don’t own. But Young said the show will always have “some kind of free component” through the app.
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Dallas Jenkins, creator and director of “The Chosen,” called the response to Season 4 “overwhelming,” saying it gives the cast and crew “a nice lift” as they begin filming Season 5 on April 11. That season will focus on Holy Week, “the most famous week in the history of humans,” Jenkins said. Then Season 6 will take place during a single day.
‘The Chosen’ Was Projected Onto Jesus Statue
In addition to its partnerships with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Peacock, “The Chosen” has been able to boost viewership through international outreach. Katherine Warnock, the show’s vice president of original content, said this is the “first year we’ve had strategic teams on the ground really moving the needle” outside the United States.
