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“Coven Academy” has successfully secured a Gen Alpha following as it scored over 11 million hours viewed in its first week since premiere, TheWrap can reveal exclusively.
The show, which centers on teens at an elite magic boarding school featuring 10-15 minute episodes, logged 11.4 million global hours viewed for its first chapter in its first week days on Disney+ and Hulu, according to internal viewing figures from Disney. The series debuted Oct. 1 on Freeform, but the full season began streaming the next day on Disney+, Hulu and Freeform on demand.
The viewership boosted “Coven Academy” to rank as the No. 1 streaming series among teens 12–17 across premiere weekend as well as within the top five shows among all viewers, according to viewership data from Nielsen.
In addition to scoring audiences on Disney+ and Hulu, “Coven Academy” saw notable success on social media as Disney met teen audiences where they are at and dropped the full first chapter on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube on October 2, the same day as the Disney+ premiere.
The first chapter stirred up over 30 million additional social views, with 18 million on TikTok, 11 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on YouTube.
To capture the TikTok-obsessed Gen Alpha audience, “Coven Academy” embraced shorter episodes or as the show calls them, “chapters,” with the first season composed of 21 chapters running 10 to 15 minutes each. It’s not quite as short as microdramas, but certainly not as long as the typical 21-minute episode Disney shows usually embrace.
In an interview with TheWrap, creator Tim Federle revealed that the show shot 10 episodes, and cut them into the 21 chapters.
“We looked at it and said, where are the big cliffhanger-y moments where you’re just going like, ‘Oh my god, I need to watch the next one’ … let’s try something because it is hard to break through these days,” he said. “What if we did more episodes, more cliffhangers, more propulsion, but still tried to give some of those deep character moments of characters connecting, questioning – and try to jam all that in in season one.”
Set in the haunted heart of New Orleans, “Coven Academy” follows “three teenage witches and their dangerously charming warlock peers at an elite magic boarding school where power is currency, secrets are lethal and attraction is a liability,” the official logline reads. “Caught between ancient supernatural wars and forbidden love interests, the coven must decide how far they’re willing to go to protect their city — and themselves.”
The series features the next generation of Disney stars, including Malina Pauli Weissman (“A Series of Unfortunate Events”) Malachi Barton (“Camp Rock 3,” “Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires”), Jordan Leftwich (“The Family Switch”), Ora Duplass (“Their Town”) and Louis Thresher (“Boarders”).
Additional cast includes Tiffani Thiessen, Devon Sawa, Swayam Bhatia, Brendon Tremblay, Keegan Connor Tracy, BJ Harrison and Nathaniel Logan McIntyre.
