Ratings report: Game of Thrones stays the course with “Battle of the Bastards”
By Dan Selcke
The ratings for “Battle of the Bastards,” the ninth episode of Game of Thrones’ sixth season, are in, and they are…perfectly solid. The episode pulled in 7.66 live viewers and nabbed a demo rating of 3.9. That’s impressive by any measure, and easily won Game of Thrones the night among its cable brethren. It was also the highest-rated penultimate episode of a season in the show’s history.
Still, while the numbers are very good, four other episodes of Game of Thrones Season 6 have pulled in better live ratings than “Battle of the Bastards.” With all the anticipation surrounding this particular episode, not to mention the extremely positive fan response, we were wondering whether the ratings wouldn’t be higher, or even break records. If I had to guess why the numbers are merely good and not great (relatively speaking), I would point to the fact that “Battle of the Bastards” aired opposite Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals, which pulled in a staggering 31.02 live viewers. Some people may have chosen to watch the game first and catch up on Game of Thrones later. This guy, for instance:
If you're that person who is going to watch Game of Thrones during Warrriors-Thunder and tweet about it, you deserve to be on Arya's list.
— Sean Wagner-McGough (@seanjwagner) May 22, 2016
The final showdown between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors pulled in the highest ratings for an NBA Finals game since 1998, when the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, faced down the Utah Jazz. Faced up against that, not even Game of Thrones was going to come out on top.
We’ll be watching the ratings closely this week. Will the Season 6 finale, “The Winds of Winter,” finally pull in enough viewers to break the 8 million mark? Stay tuned.