Linear ratings for House of the Dragon drop with Episode 3

HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon came out of the gate strong, becoming the most-watched series premiere in the history of HBO. Perhaps even more impressive, ratings went up for Episode 2, which was watched by a total of 10.2 million people across linear viewers and HBO Max on that Sunday night.

Now things are coming down to earth. Variety reports that the third episode of House of the Dragon, “Second of His Name,” was watched by around 2.5 million people across linear television this past Sunday night, about a million less than watched the second episode in the same way.

Note that HBO Max numbers are not included. That’s because market research company Nielsen only has access to linear numbers; we basically only know streaming numbers if the streamers at issue release them voluntarily. HBO Max did unveil numbers for the first two episodes of House of the Dragon but not for the third, so we can assume they also dropped.

It’s time for House of the Dragon to fly or fall on its own merits

That said, we can also assume that HBO Max numbers made up the bulk of viewership for Episode 3 just as they did for Episodes 1 and 2. The combined numbers aren’t going to reach the heights of linear viewership Game of Thrones was enjoying towards the end of its run — the third episode of Game of Thrones season 8, “The Long Night,” pulled in 12 million linear viewers, back before HBO Max launched — but House of the Dragon is still in a very good place. It’s standard for viewership to fall off after a premiere; it just took House of the Dragon two episodes instead of one.

House of the Dragon came onto TV with a lot of hype behind it, and that built-in audience helped get it off to a great start. But if it’s going to go the distance, it has to do what every successful TV show does: prove itself a worthwhile watch week by week, build up its base, and eventually become a hit on its own merits. So far the show has been very good, so my guess is this will happen. I’m curious to see how the ratings ebb and flow throughout the season. Where will we be by the finale, I wonder?

UPDATE: HBO Max numbers for House of the Dragon were way up

OKAY, here comes a twist: according to Deadline, while the linear ratings on Sunday may have dropped 28.6%, viewership on HBO Max the following Monday rose by 27%. The theory is that people didn’t tune in as much on Sunday because it was Labor Day weekend, and then caught up the next day.

In any case, a combined number of 16 million people watched the newest episode over the weekend, which is on track with Episodes 1 and 2. So I guess ignore everything I said up there, House of the Dragon is still an outsized hit with no dropoff.

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