With “House of the Dragon” the successor to “Game of Thrones” has started on the premium cable channel HBO. The premiere of the eagerly awaited fantasy series was a success a week ago: 9.98 million viewers watched episode one on Sunday evening – the day of publication – distributed via the streaming service HBO Max and linear TV. Now, HBO Max itself has announced the viewership figures for the show’s second episode, and they even surpass the premiere: 10.2 million fans tuned in or streamed right on Sunday this time.
In the same breath, HBO Max provided an update on the August 21 series premiere just mentioned. Episode one watched 25 million viewers within a week. The new figure comes from the almost 10 million viewers of the premiere day and streams on the following days plus repeats in linear programming and video-on-demand views.
However, “House of the Dragon” does not yet come close to the fabulous numbers of the previous series “Game of Thrones”. As “Variety” writes, 17.9 million viewers watched the premiere of the eighth and final “Game of Thrones” season on the day of publication. The series finale then came to 19.3 million viewers, according to “Entertainment Weekly”.
But catching up with “Game of Thrones” doesn’t seem out of the question either. Another comparison: As can be read in the industry magazine “Hollywood Reporter”, an average of 25.7 million viewers per episode saw the sixth season, 32.8 million the seventh and 44.2 million viewers the eighth “Game of Thrones” season on. This means the total number of viewers including, for example, time-shifted streams and repeats, not the numbers for the day of the premiere. If “House of the Dragon” is able to maintain the currently still provisional viewership of 25 million per episode mentioned above, the series would already be on par with the sixth season of its successful predecessor.
The viewership figures for HBO and its streaming service HBO Max apply exclusively to the US market. In Germany, “House of the Dragon” is available exclusively on Sky and its streaming service Wow (formerly Sky Ticket). HBO has already given the “Game of Thrones” prequel series, which takes place around 200 years before the events of Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, a second season. The US channel announced this a few days ago.
