'House of the Dragon' draws 10M viewers as HBO's biggest series premiere
The Dragon roars: Highly promoted Game of Thrones follow-up House of the Dragon set a launch viewership record for HBO (NASDAQ:WBD), drawing 9.986M viewers on its traditional TV distribution and HBO Max platforms Sunday.
That's the biggest audience for a new original series in HBO's history.
It was also the biggest series launch on HBO Max across the U.S., Latin America, and Europe/Middle East/Africa regions, the network said, adding that typical Sunday night viewership represents just 20-40% of a show's total gross audience.
The expensive series has gotten HBO's biggest-ever marketing push, according to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, and it looked like it had the potential to top the reception for its predecessor Game of Thrones earlier Monday after reports that HBO's app failed to handle the crush of viewers in some instances.
As for Game of Thrones, which ended in 2019, recent catch-up viewing led that series to its strongest week on HBO Max, with its weekly average viewership up 90% above June and 50% above July, HBO said.
HBO also touted its social-media dominance, noting House of the Dragon's ownership of top trending topics on Twitter and Google Trends.
The original Game of Thrones drew about 2M viewers for its series premiere, and that audience built up to upwards of 44M for its eighth season.