'House of the Dragon' Is HBO's Biggest New Series Premiere Ever
etonline.comis off to a flying start. HBO's prequel — set 200 years before Daenerys Targaryen's quest for the Iron Throne — scored nearly 10 million viewers in its Sunday night debut, making it the most highly-rated original new series premiere in the history of HBO.
Officially, the cable network reports 9.986 million viewers across both linear and HBO Max streaming platforms in the United States on Sunday night -- even as the streaming app crashed on Amazon Fire TV devices, leaving a portion of potential viewers in the dark.
A press release from HBO indicates that Sunday's viewership is expected to make up just a small portion — 20 to 40 percent — of the show's total gross audience.
While a direct comparison would be impossible to nail down -- due in part to shifting landscapes in streaming and evolving fandoms — the and both note that first season premiered to 4.2 million viewers in 2011, while its eighth and final season premiere was watched by a record-setting 17.9 million people in 2019.
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