House of the Dragon’s Debut Sets an HBO Viewership Record

Does it really feel like there are dragons all over the place you look right now? That’s as a result of most likely most everybody you understand tuned in to House of the Dragon final evening, which introduced in “the largest audience for any new original series in the history of HBO,” in line with a press launch from the community.

The whole variety of viewers? A tidy 9.986 million “across linear and HBO Max platforms in the U.S. Sunday night,” so whenever you issue within the streamer’s worldwide markets and the truth that individuals may even be watching right now and all through the week, that’s… effectively, it’s a crap-ton of eyeballs wanting to see what’s occurring in the Westeros-set prequel.

For a visible support, please get pleasure from this video shared by the official House of the Dragon Twitter account (hat-tip Uproxx) that exhibits what appears like practically a complete high-rise condo all glued to the present on the similar time.

HBO Max has gotten some unhealthy ink recently for curbing its catalog, to not point out scrapping some high-profile in-progress tasks, however given the numbers you’ll be able to count on nothing however full help from the corporate for House of the Dragon. Even Game of Thrones, which ended its run in 2019, “just wrapped its strongest week on HBO Max to date, capping off a seven-week stretch of week-over-week growth in engagement leading up to the premiere of House of the Dragon,” in line with the discharge. That’s robust proof that even individuals who watched (or re-watched, gods assist them) Thrones season eight nonetheless had sufficient fan spirit to take a look at the brand new sequence.

Will this revived Game of Thrones fever have the ability to maintain itself throughout the debut season of House of the Dragon? We had some blended emotions concerning the premiere, however we’ll nonetheless be tuning in to see what these pungent (apparently) dragons and their slippery people rise up to subsequent. New episodes arrive Sunday nights on HBO and HBO Max by way of October 23.

Want extra io9 information? Check out when to count on the most recent Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and all the things it’s good to learn about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.