Posted on 08/24/2022 11:20:52 AM PDT by Drew68
A Lotta People Watched the Dragon Show
HBO’s House of the Dragon is off to a stellar start in the ratings: 10 million viewers across all of the network’s platforms streamed Sunday’s premiere of the first Game of Thrones spinoff series. That’s easily the largest audience for a series in the HBO Max era, and according to the network, it’s the best opening night for any HBO original series ever, though changes in how ratings are tabulated make comparisons tough. But whatever the specifics, the big takeaway seems to be that Dragon took flight right out of the gate and is shaping up to be a hit.
While HBO declined to release fast national Nielsen data for Sunday’s linear telecasts of HOTD, the 10 million all-in, multiplatform number easily outdrew recent HBO series launches and returning-series premieres. Succession, for example, opened with 1.4 million viewers across platforms, and red-hot Euphoria began its second season earlier this year with 2.2 million (though that number climbed to over 13 million viewers within a month). Going back to the pre-streaming era, HOTD easily surpassed the series premiere ratings for GoT, which opened to a solid but not spectacular 4.2 million viewers in April 2011. Based on those numbers, HBO renewed GoT for a second season the same day it released the premiere ratings. The network hasn’t yet announced a renewal for HOTD, though these numbers suggest that’s likely a formality.
Meanwhile, the 10 million viewer figure released today is expected to grow exponentially over the next few weeks as more people catch up with the show or do their own mini-binges. HBO noted that premiere-night numbers typically represent just 20 to 40 percent of a show’s overall audience during the course of a season, suggesting the HOTD premiere will eventually be seen by well over 20 million viewers in the U.S.
To the surprise of nobody in the TV industry, HOTD finished well behind the GoT series finale, which premiered with 19.3 million multi-platform viewers in 2019 (including a record-setting 13.6 million live, linear viewers on HBO cable) before climbing to over 44 million viewers within a month. But that was a once-a-decade TV event representing the culmination of eight seasons of storytelling, and there was zero expectation at HBO of topping that record — or even coming close.
It’s tough to make precise ratings comparisons between the early days of GoT and HOTD because of how dramatically the television landscape has changed since the original series debuted in 2011. HBO has gone from a stand-alone premium cable network available in about 28 million U.S. homes (and just beginning to explore the idea of letting consumers watch via the internet) to a service that now anchors the direct-to-consumer HBO Max and boasts around 49 million domestic customers (including millions who still access it via cable and satellite). Add in population growth — there are about 20 million more people living in the U.S. today versus 2011 — and the pool of potential viewers for HOTD is much bigger than it was for GoT.
Comparisons also get wonky when you try to stack up GoT’s final season in 2019 and HOTD. As noted, there’s the not insignificant fact that the former represented the long-awaited conclusion to an epic drama while the latter is an entirely new chapter in the GoT universe that features no cast members from the original (though there are a lot more dragons this time). Yet even though GoT ended just three years ago, the TV universe has once again undergone a significant evolution. Not only is HBO Max now a thing, but so are Disney+, Apple TV+, Peacock, and Paramount+. There’s a lot more streaming competition, so it’s harder to aggregate big audiences on a single night — making it all the more impressive that House of the Dragon could accumulate 10 million viewers in just a few hours.
Will it be as good as the original? Who knows. Most people thought Better Call Saul would never measure up to Breaking Bad but now there are people arguing that it was actually better.
So we shall see.
I dont have HBO. I watched GOT’s by getting the DVD’s from the library. It was good but also a lot of porn surrounded by drama. Kind of typical garbage in one way, yet it had its appeal.
I wont go out of my way to see this one, but as it gets released to DVD, I will probably see it.
It was quite good.
Watched it, wife and I both liked it, it’s a fun, adult program.
The original GOT crashed hard. I won’t waste my time on a repeat of that. I’ll wait for the whole series to finish. If, at the end, people walk away saying, “Best TV series ever! What a strong finish!!” then I’ll start watching.
“It felt like Game of Thrones.”
Don’t care. Won’t watch it until GRRM actually finishes and publishes the series. I won’t be taken in again.
HBO Max is doing great, according to HBO Max
It’s not bad so far. Eztv has it (and just about every other series) for downloading.
...never watched any of ‘that stuff’...not entertaining IMHO
GRRM has already written thousands of unpublished pages trying to tie up every loose end in GoT.
He will die before he completes this.
FWIW, I thought his GoT books were excellent. I didn't read them until after I had watched the series but it didn't diminish the books at all.
I should probably read this one.
“He will die before he completes this.”
Then I’ll never watch this new show. I really have no sympathy for him, he created the mess himself, and has had every opportunity to fix it, but he prefers to do other things with his time.
The odds Martin finishes it are almost zero.
I saw a Daily Mail article quoting people who tweeted that they were disgusted by the violence and nudity and thought it was over the top. I thought it was a relatively mild Game of Thrones episode. Anyone who was shocked by the violence or nudity in this one episode has never seen Game of Thrones. The Mountain crushing Pedro Pascal's skull in Season 4 is by far the most horrifying moment in TV or movie history.
I will say the Iron Age caesarean scene was pretty gruesome, all the more because the wife in labor didn't know what was happening to her.
Surprised I liked it, and there's no woke crap in it, or social justicey stuff, and a relatively non-diverse cast (no diversity for diversity's sake), except for the one black dude, who was really good. He actually took Daemon's side, which seemed to be the less moral position with respect to how the show is framing Daemon.
This almost makes me want to check out the Lord of the Rings thing on Amazon, in the hopes that it may be better than it looks. But I just can't see how turning Galadriel into Strong Female Warrior could possibly turn out good.
Are you running a HOTD ping list as you did for GOT?
Then the odds of me watching or reading anything else associated with him are also close to zero.
Gratuitous nudity is an HBO hallmark. They've been doing it for over 40 years, since the day when HBO was the only channel out there that would show nudity on TV. People have come to expect it.
It's kinda funny about the violence. I have several streaming channels and the only one that ever lags or freezes up is HBO on occasion and when my wife and I were watching HOTD, the picture froze up right on the scene of the dude's bloody nutsack. Wife and I had to stare at the little spinning wheel on TV for way too long.
I will say the Iron Age caesarean scene was pretty gruesome, all the more because the wife in labor didn't know what was happening to her.
She figured out exactly what was going to happen to her which made the scene even more gruesome!
It was a good opening episode and I look forward to watching future episodes.
That irritates me. ;-D
The story of the Dance is complete, so the ending is known unless the show changes it. Some changes are already there, especially the age difference between Rhaenerya and Alicent (book Alicent is 11 years older) and time compression in general.
The time jumps coming up will be jarring and there will be new actresses for Rhaenerya and Alicent. Some important male characters haven't been born as of the first episode.
I binge watched Game of Thrones over two months. For me, the show ends after season 6.
Watched it.
Won’t be watching any more episodes.
Too predictable.
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