“House of the Dragon”
The “Game of Thrones” successor tumbles the records
Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen in House of the Dragon.
© Home Box Office, Inc.
Almost ten million viewers watched the premiere of the new fantasy series “House of the Dragon”. This is a record for HBO.
For the US channel HBO and its streaming service HBO Max, the new series “House of the Dragon” has made a real dream start. As Warner Bros. Discovery, the owners of HBO, announced themselves, the follow-up series to “Game of Thrones” is the most watched premiere in the long history of the premium cable channel HBO. Almost 10 million viewers tuned in to HBO or streamed on HBO Max on Sunday night, the day the first episode was released in the US. For comparison: The premiere of “Game of Thrones” in 2011 was watched by only 4.2 million pairs of eyes.
However, the figure of 9.98 million viewers is only provisional, as viewing habits have changed in the streaming age and many viewers only watch a series episode in the days that follow. Warner Bros. Discovery describes the number of almost ten million viewers as only 20 to 40 percent of the ultimate audience. More precise figures for the “House of the Dragon” premiere will therefore only be available in the coming days and weeks.
“House of the Dragon” also in Europe and other continents with start record
Warner Bros. Discovery also announced that the series launch is the largest in the history of the fledgling streaming service HBO Max, also in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. In the USA, the company Samba TV also collects data on streaming and linear TV on television sets. According to Samba TV, 2.6 million viewers tuned in on the evening of the premiere. According to the measurement by Samba TV, “House of the Dragon” is the most successful start of a series or series season in 2022. The previous record holder, the fourth season of the Netflix series “Stranger Things”, was watched on the day of the premiere by only 1, 2 million US homes on TVs.
Behind series finale of “Game of Thrones”
So far, however, the follow-up series has not come close to the fabulous numbers of the 82-minute “Game of Thrones” finale in 2019. The final decision about the Iron Throne was watched by 19.3 million viewers on HBO and the then available streaming platforms HBO Go and HBO Now.