A whole lotta people watched the eighth and final season premiere of Game of Thrones. Quick, everybody act shocked.
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To be specific, Entertainment Weekly reports that 17.4 million people tuned in to watch “Winterfell.” That includes multiple airings and some streaming. Notably, it does not include streaming partners like Amazon, Hulu, Roku, nor does it include Dish subscribers, whom HBO lost in a contract dispute last year. Even with those caveats, “Winterfell” is still the highest-rated episode of Game of Thrones ever, eclipsing the season 7 finale “The Dragon and the Wolf,” which pulled 16.1 million viewers over the same period.
Over the course of season 7, HBO averaged 32 million viewers per episode. With this strong start, we can expect season 8 to beat it when all is said and done. As EW points out, Game of Thrones is the very rare show that’s gotten more popular each season its been on, a distinction shared by the likes of Breaking Bad. Then there’s The Walking Dead model, which involves ratings that grow to prodigious sizes over the first several seasons before guttering into the ground in the last couple. Unless something horrible happens, we can expect Game of Thrones to go out on top.
And let’s also remember that the kind of viewership HBO tracks doesn’t account for the way everybody watches this show. According to EW, “The real global number will be far closer to 100 million.” Basically, what we’re saying is that the show is popular. Are you still acting surprised?
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