Ratings report: Game of Thrones holds rock steady with “Oathbreaker”

Last week, 7.29 million people watched “Home,” the second episode of Game of Thrones Season 6, live. The ratings are now in for “Oathbreaker,” the third episode of the season. According to Zap2It, “Oathbreaker” was watched live by 7.28 people and got a rating 3.7 among adults 18-49, meaning that the show kept nearly all of its live audience between last week and this week. I guess ending on Jon Snow coming back to life was a smart move.

It should probably go without saying that, so far as cable programming goes, Game of Thrones dominated Sunday night. It’s closest competition was an NBA Playoff game on TNT, which was watched live by 5.09 million people.

It’s more interesting, I think, to compare the episode’s ratings to others in Game of Thrones’ history. “Home” was the fourth highest rated episode of the show’s run (behind “Mother’s Mercy,” “The Wars to Come,” and “The Red Woman”), and “Oathbreaker” is the fifth highest rated. The show is having a very good year so far, ratings-wise.

We will note that, after years of climbing steadily in the ratings, Game of Thrones finally seems to be plateauing—”The Red Woman” was the first season premiere that didn’t outdo the last one. Then again, this is probably a plateau HBO is happy to sit upon. After a show has saturated pop culture, how many more fans can it really pick up?