News/Ratings

Game of Thrones season 6 premiere hits new ratings high

Posted on by Sue the Fury

Dany Qhono

Game of Thrones has reached a new ratings height with its season six premiere, as many fans were hoping and predicting.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the premiere racked up “nearly 8 million viewers during its 9 p.m. premiere telecast on Sunday. But, with two encores and initial streaming data from services HBO Go and HBO Now, the episode grows to a record 10.7 million viewers.”

This total is 400,000 higher than the previous record set by the season five finale, “Mother’s Mercy.” There will be a more comprehensive ratings total eventually with the live-plus-seven day returns.

The Sunday night premiere was also a smash with pirates. Though it doesn’t look like the premiere set any records in that department this time (perhaps HBO’s free weekend helped in that regard?), Torrent Freak reports that more than a million downloads of the episode were recorded in half a day.

Hear Marko Roar adds: TV by the Numbers will soon have some more comprehensive data. The intial airing viewership was practically the same as for last year’s premiere: over 7.99 vs 7.94 million (this latter number will feature in our graphs). One additional airing on the same night last year increased the number to 8.7, this year there were two. We should learn soon how much they contributed to the 10.7 cross-platform overnight total (UPDATE: the answer is the three airings added up to 10 million).

Speaking of totals, our loyal reader Johan summarized the facts:

So with encore and streaming included it grew from 9.8 million last premiere to 10.7 now. Previous high (with encores and streaming) was 10.3 million for the season finale.

For the first time, our favourite, unimportant, yet reliably available metric of initial viewership did not increase from last year’s finale (8.11 million) to next year’s premiere, presumably due to the wider on-demand availability.

Sue the Fury
Susan Miller, Editor in Chief of WatchersOnTheWall.com

124 Comments

  9. I don’t believe it; all the book-purists were going to stop watching because the show sucks. Must be fake.

    Seriously though, great ratings! Slightly disappointed that it just missed out on 8 million for the initial airing, but can’t really complain at all with a record.

  11. Awesome news, hope it passes this in one of the episodes to come ^^
    Can’t wait for this Sunday 🙂

  13. That’s awesome. And I’m happy to be one of the numbers in that total for a change. I usually have to wait for the DVDs to see the show but I broke over and got HBO now for this season.

  14. Deesensfan,

    Congratulations on the accurate prediction!!!
    Loved last Sundays episode, glad millions of other fans tuned in to watch it.

  16. By the time they’re done measuring everything, I 100% predict that the ratings for this season will come close to shattering everything that has come before it. Hype, both negative and positive is at an all time high.

  19. Wondering why no one timeline critic person mentioned the very first episode when we saw Jaime and Cersei at Jon Arryn’s funeral in King’s Landing and in the same episode they arrives at Winterfell. Just stop it already dumbs…

    Dogs: https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/4gbren/solving_the_mystery_of_the_missing_dogs_s6e1/

    My guesses about the Dorne plot is that Quentyn already died so the Targaryen ally doesn’t work, Arianne is on her way to Aegon(who is just a Blackfyre) and they were cutted as well for some reason. (I think the reason is this Blackfyre-thing what they didn’t want to explain, because there is no time for that) I think they will die all and Doran’s all plan fails. After that he dies or someone kills him and the dornish people will follow a new leader, because Doran isn’t the right leader for a war, for Dorne because he is half-cripple. (And a leader will be some woman perhaps? Like formerly Nymeria? That’s why this hint in the series? We’ll see…)

  20. Does this only count the viewers in America or does it also count viewers in other countries for eg Foxtel in Australia … I watched it live the same time as it was airing in America and honestly Foxtel really played up the premiere with a whole bunch of game of thrones goodies leading up to the episode

  23. D&D: “I think we have 13-15 more hours of story left to tell.”
    HBO Exec: “20 more hours? You got it.”

    (In seriousness, I would think that HBO probably doesn’t put the same pressure on show runners for more episodes since their business is based on premium cable subscriptions, not selling ad space. Two more seasons means two more years of subscribers who stick around because of Game of Thrones. Whether the seasons are 10 episodes or 7 episodes, it doesn’t matter much for subscriptions.)

  24. The first showing TV ratings actually dipped slightly from last year’s premiere. That is to be expected as HBO Go is available in more places now.

    The show is slightly increasing season to season but for the most part it has hit a very strong plateau. Which for season 6…. to not go down in ratings…. is fantastic.

  31. It’d be interesting to know the international ratings, TV and legitimate HBO internet, live/catch-up.

    I only saw the first episode two hours ago because it first became available 24 hours after the US premiere, which was 4am Tuesday morning here, and I had boring things like work to do first thing in the morning… and day… I was in a meeting, people waffling on and on, and I wanted to go “Dracarys!” Just shut up and let me get on with more important things, like going home to watch GoT!

  33. Mihnea:
    Knight of the Walkers,

    HBO GO and Now, will continue to grow. Live viewership won’t.

    It’s simply the way the industry’s moving.

    Exactly. First run TV show ratings mean less and less each year. Especially for a station like HBO.

  34. Sansa’s Knight,

    The Nielsen rating is US. Other markets may provide numbers separately. For example:
    In the U.K., Thrones delivered 2.2 million for its season 6 launch – the biggest overnight U.K. audience for the show ever (and particularly impressive since Thrones debuts at 2 a.m. local time

  36. I’m not sure the ratings for these last few seasons are going to be directly comparable to the ratings for previous seasons, or even to each other, realistically.

    The rise of streaming as an alternative to cable subscriptions is going to affect the size and makeup of the audience in ways that aren’t going to be easy to tease out. The overall number is probably going to continue rising and the initial airing is probably going to keep dropping. (Maybe not episode over episode, but as a general trend).

    That’s likely to be the case regardless of the quality or popularity of the show going forward, unless there is a much sharper uptick or drop in either than has happened thus far in any of the seasons.

    I guess what this ultimately boils down to is that the show is successful enough that the ratings no longer really matter much unless there are some huge swings, and it’s going to be difficult going forward to tell whether any smaller fluctuations in the ratings are a reaction to the content of the show or to a shift in the distribution patterns of the industry.

    I’m still interested in the numbers, but I don’t think they’re reflective of much to do with the show any longer, except insofar as they are generally high because the show is generally pretty widely popular. Beyond that, again barring any really major shift in attitude toward the show for whatever reason, I think there’s going to be too much noise to get much of a signal out of these numbers, and they’re unlikely to mean much for the future of the show anyway.

  38. talvikorppi,

    Iam only going to watch the episode on television in two hours .

    In India it is going to premiere on Tuesdays at 10 pm ..

    About piracy is something changed this year …i couldn’t get to download one on Sunday night and Monday morning .

  40. Mihnea,

    Yeah I know. As others have said it is incredible how high the ratings are for a series in its sixth season. It’s hard to really emphasise hoe impressive the ratings are, and it will be a while before we see another show do the same all over the world.

  41. dragonbringer:
    Knight of the Walkers,

    It turns out they actually like to watch the show and give 1 as a voting in westeros.org …apparently giving the series 1 is so much better and than stop watching for them

    When I saw how many gave the episode a 1 on the website…. I closed the page. Bunch of trolls there.

  43. Deesensfan:
    Clob,

    You said 3rd highest for series, I thought you were referring to series airing that night at the same time.

    Nope, sorry. It won the night. 🙂 That wasn’t in the article, I was just adding that 7.94 was third highest initial airing for a GoT episode.

  50. Lou,

    I would love to see Tyrion do that, but I’m thinking he flakes out, and they aren’t set free just yet

  51. Wait the episode had 0, 6 less than it’s record on tv in a weekend HBO streaming online was free???
    It’s the end guys, i don’t care if it had 400.000 more viewers online without the free viewers and broke records in Australia and Uk.
    The show is over, nobody talks about it or watch it. I can’t believe it continues to grow in it’s sixth season.

    Now i can’t wait for twitter accounts who actually have GoT actors as profile pics to keep on saying how bad it is.

  54. “The Sunday night premiere was also a smash with pirates.”

    Interesting they keep watching even though Salladhor Saan isn’t in it anymore. And it must be expensive to get HBO on their boats. I bet they’re coming back to watch now for the prospect of Euron and the Iron Island plot this year. Definitely something they’ll relate to more than the normal medieval fantasy.

  56. Deesensfan,

    It’s game of thrones, since it’s my favorite show I believe you can never have enough.
    After watching episode 1 I wanted to watch the second episode so badly. I re watched it last night, might re watch the episode again tonight XD

  60. Really? That doesn’t add up. What about all those book purists who swore they will stop watching the D&D fanfiction until book 6 is released.

    Just kidding. Great news, by the way.

  61. The NBA and NHL playoffs are good viewing…but I wasn’t going to miss this.

    The best thing about episode 1 is that it was decent…but I expect it to be the worst episode of the year!

  62. Ginevra,

    That’s correct for initial airings. Top six for the series:
    1. s5e10: 8.11
    2. s5e1: 7.99
    3. s6e1: 7.94
    4. s4e7: 7.20
    5. s4e8: 7.17
    6. s5e9: 7.14

  63. Vinyl could never!!

    I’m curious to see the ratings next week, considering you-know-what didn’t happen. Is HBO still free then as well?

  65. Mihnea:
    Knight of the Walkers,

    HBO GO and Now, will continue to grow. Live viewership won’t.

    It’s simply the way the industry’s moving.

    Not being North American, I don’t know what HBO GO and Now are. In my country, the HBO franchise is HBO Nordic. I suppose you can subscibe to that TV channel. I don’t have a TV set, so I subscribe to HBO Nordic online, which livestreams the TV but you also get complete back-libraries of every show, to watch whenever you want.

    You’re right that the industry, or rather, the viewers, are moving away from (passive) live TV viewing to live internet viewing, and more and more to (active) on-demand internet viewing.

    The thing HBO and its affiliates worldwide care about isn’t US live TV ratings but subscriptions. They’ve got me. I subscribe to HBO Nordic for 3 months of the year (at 9.95 euros per month) only because of GoT. I’ve let them know GoT is the only reason. I suspect I’m not alone, and I suspect HBO know this.

    Some other HBO shows are just watched live on TV, with a tiny internet viewership, but GoT breaks that mold. No wonder HBO would want GoT to keep going, it’s their successful “pilot” into the new era of broadcasting, over the internet. Their goose that lays the golden eggs. They’ve captured the young(ish) market willing to pay. A show like Coronation Street might be hugely popular in the UK, but none of its watchers would pay or go to the interwebby thing to see it.

  67. Sansa’s Knight,

    Just American audiences, GoT is way more popular outside the U.S. and foreign markets don’t keep track that well (no Nielsons), but the indications are the international numbers are staggering.

  69. I’ve watched the episode several times now and still believe it’s very solid for a season premiere. I think some are becoming overly critical of the show because they’re not seeing what they want to see, regardless of the quality in what they are. It feels like this episode would have been accepted by those that are negative much better three years ago. However, now we’re at a point when when we’ve seen big and major and if an episode doesn’t deliver more of that then it’s ‘not good.’ Been there, done that comes into play

  70. By the way, did anyone notice that Sophie Turner has moved up in the credits and mentioned by herself like Emilia and Kit, whereas previously she was paired with Maisie Williams and mentioned below her. Maisie Williams is now paired with Conleth Hill. I guess this sort of confirms Maisie/Arya being in less episodes this season and Sophie Turner getting a promotion of sorts with Sansa taking on a more or less central role in the North.

  71. Clob,

    You could have just said….

    Haters gonna hate. Lol

    I just rewatched Season 4 & 5 these last few weeks. . The same season 5 some people are claiming was a huge step down. Even with 9 months time passing by, the season is still fantastic and of equal quality to the rest of the show. Only Dorne was poorly done, but that story line was bad for almost everybody.

  72. It’s great to see that the ratings were great, but they are not really that important because HBO will see it to its conclusion, which is all we need!

    As for all the critics and others who love to shit all over the show, they’re just jealous because they feel like they are not invited to the party.

    Fuck the ratings, fuck the critics, fuck everyone who are not The Watchers on the Wall!! It’s our party and we will continue to love it until it’s last seconds!!!

    Long May we Reign!!

  73. Just to correct some people, the free preview audience doesn’t count towards the viewership. I know this has come up in the past when discussing premier ratings, because HBO always has a free preview when GOT debuts.

  74. Clob,

    Thank you! I apologize for not reading the post more clearly.

    I believe I completely ignored the 10.7 million number because 1.) we’ve not cared as much about that number in the past and 2.) that number is obviously skewed this month because this is the only month that HBO Now has ever been free. So comparing free HBO numbers to paid subscription HBO numbers is a poor way to get any sense of how the show is fairing in general, in my statistically educated opinion. Or am I wrong there, too? The 10.7 does include those watching for free, right? And the 10.3 (and every other number that the 10.7 is being compared to) does not include anyone watching without a paid subscription, right?

    To say, we gave HBO away for free and we broke records seems disingenuous.

  75. SerNoName,

    YES! I noticed that as well! I think it is a reflection of Sophie emerging not only as a leading lady in the show, but as a star as well!

  77. Does this count views on HBO NOW? That must’ve been incredibly high considering I couldn’t get on for twenty minutes, which didn’t happen last year.

  79. Ginevra: HBO Now has ever been free

    HBO NOW is always free to new subscribers for the first month. Last year, and this year. Maybe you meant the HBO channel?

  83. Lets admit it. They really only make the show for us to watch right? Who are these other peasants making up the numbers?

  84. Entertainment Weekly also reports it set overnight records in the UK for the show, averaging 2.2 million viewers.

  88. tyrone,

    One can disagree with someone without getting foul about it.
    You need to chill out with the name-calling.

  89. I think it’s just a trendy on the internet thing to talk about how much GoT sucks now. A few years ago, it was the hot new show. Now that it’s become really popular, it’s time to tear it down. There was a clickbait article at the top of the page on Jezebel all weekend that talked about how unwatchably bad the show is. It was cool to love it. Now it’s cool to hate it.

    The vast majority of the people who say they hate the show and will stop watching are talking out of their asses and the numbers prove it. Or at least suggest it. I suppose it’s possible many people stopped watching but there was a large increase in new viewers. I kind of doubt it though.

    I expect lots of hate and nitpicking for the rest of the series run and then a couple of years after it goes off the air, all will be forgotten and people will talk about how great it was and how much they miss it.

  90. Before online HBO, i pirated. Only way for me to watch besides waiting months. But i never downloaded i always clicked the video and there the show was. Downloads are a wildly incomprehensive prating number. You can watch anytime, anyhow besides downloading.

  92. So the ratings actually went down, then?

    I mean, the intitial viewing was the the same as last year’s premiere, DESPITE HBO giving a free weekend. The fact that they climbed a little higher this time in total, can be attributed to the extra viewing this year.

    And less people pirated it?

  93. sjwenings:
    So the ratings actually went down, then?

    I mean, the intitial viewing was the the same as last year’s premiere, DESPITE HBO giving a free weekend. The fact that they climbed a little higher this time with the total numbers, can be attributed to the extra viewing this year.

    And less people pirated it?

  94. Tyrone, you must be new here. You will quickly find out we don’t go from zero to cunt, no matter how wrong someone is, or call people retarded, in the comments here. Grow up. Learn more words. Be a nice person. Or leave.

  95. Ravyn: HBO NOW is always free to new subscribers for the first month. Last year, and this year. Maybe you meant the HBO channel?

    Ah, thanks, Ravyn! I thought that HBO Now had just started with the free trial option, but perhaps they’ve just ramped up advertising for that free trial option.

  96. sjwenings:
    I mean, the intitial viewing was the the same as last year’s premiere, DESPITE HBO giving a free weekend. The fact that they climbed a little higher this time in total, can be attributed to the extra viewing this year.

    The viewership only includes subscribers. The free viewers don’t count.

  97. Lyanna_Targaryen,

    I remember when I’d learn a new curse word, and I’d try and use it at every possible opportunity.

    Elementary school was fun like that.

    btw – I may have to borrow your “zero to cunt” line at some point. That’s a good one. 🙂

  98. weirwoodtreehugger,

    Zero tolerance for such behaviour. Sorry for not deleting the comments later. Tyrone and everyone who can’t behave, be warned. Disagree vehemently, stay respectful.

  99. Mihnea: I didn’t say you where wrong.

    I just said you where rude.

    Were, not where. Were is the past tense of “are.” Where is an adverb signifying a location / place.

    Where do whores go?
    The whores were in Tyrion’s bedchamber.

    I hope this makes sense.

  105. The Bastard: First run TV show ratings mean less and less each year. Especially for a station like HBO.

    Also, it is becoming more and more clear that what viewers really like is to get whole series at once, and then watch them at their leisure. So many TV shows have gone the “serial” route over the last 15 years that people are watching the series, not individual episodes.

    That will, of course, lead to sturm and drang here in the coming weeks. The ratings will almost certainly drop quite a bit as HBO viewers return to their usual viewing habits of watching the show later in the week, or watching 2-3 episodes at a time every 2-3 weeks. Oh no! The continuity error with Melisandre’s broach turned off the viewers! Oh no! People wanted Dorne done “right.” Not really: more like, Joe and Jane HBO Subscriber have reports due or cases or meetings on Monday morning, and a busy week after that.

    Expect the show to return to these highs at the end of the season, when more people want to catch the last couple of episodes asap. (The end of the school year might also free up schedules to some extent: even in the “muggle” world, schedules get a little laxer in summertime.

    Lyanna_Targaryen: Learn more words. Be a nice person. Or leave.

    Indeed! There is a whole Thesaurus of derogatory words out there. If you are going to be an ass, well, you might as well be smart about it.

    (That written, I would have thought “zero to cunt” described how quickly my best friend in college could score with young women. I mean, damn, he was good. I mean, bad. I mean, you know what I mean.)

  106. Great stuff, 8-10 million

    Seems to have picked up where it left off in some respects, and even built on it if it has led to increased uptake of HBO Now and live-streaming

    As others have mentioned, HBO are getting subscribers, but this is important for measuring intensity of interest etc as I’ve said in a previous thread/article but what’s fascinating about this is the little mini-review industry by internet personalities building up. Of course this site is part of that and interesting to see the tweet on the side about the page being under pressure from all of the traffic. Not to mention seeing the YT reviewers views go up quite quickly, eg Emergency Awesome, Preston Jacobs, Ozzyman and Alt Shift X in my case. Started watching RedTeamReview very recently as well

    Personally I expect it to actually increase in the coming weeks given the obsession there seems to be regarding Jon Snow which is creeping into pop culture, after that it will relax for eps 5 and 6 and then pick up strongly for the end of the season when there is presumably Cleganebowl and Snowbowl etc

    Generally speaking I enjoyed the viewership experience, I watched first 3 seasons and then read the books, watching seasons 4 and 5 as a book reader so know both sides of the fence and despite immersion and continuity differences I know how to enjoy both, and see things like Preston Jacobs as a fun parody and fans gymnastically twisting themselves into solving Selyse/Melisandre necklace and Bolton Hound issues is quite funny

  107. These numbers are great! Even better than I expected.

    Let that Westeros.org crowd stew in their own negativity. Lord knows they have more than enough of it. The rest of us will enjoy the show for what it is!

  112. You really shouldn’t copy HBO promo speak. Of course they can always find numbers best suited for them, but the show did not set a new record in live viewers, and that’s still the most important number.
    In fact it was the first premiere ever not to hit a new series high, which is slightly surprising and maybe not the best sign, considering this was undoubtedly the most hyped season to date. I looks to me the show has reached its ceiling last year. It will be interesting to see if there will be a big mid-season drop off like last season, or if we go back to the season 1-4 pattern, where the viewership rose steadily after the premiere.

  113. Tobin,

    Online streamers that uses HBO Now are live viewers too that 7.94 figures did not count. Even if you just it at 20% of that 700 thousand as the ones who watched it live, that adds another 140 thousand to that figure

  114. Tobin:
    You really shouldn’t copy HBO promo speak. Of course they can always find numbers best suited for them, but the show did not set a new record in live viewers, and that’s still the most important number.

    HBO is not a network channel, it has no ads. The live numbers are definitely not the most important numbers for them.

  115. Tobin:
    You really shouldn’t copy HBO promo speak. Of course they can always find numbers best suited for them, but the show did not set a new record in live viewers, and that’s still the most important number.
    In fact it was the first premiere ever not to hit a new series high, which is slightly surprising and maybe not the best sign, considering this was undoubtedly the most hyped season to date. I looks to me the show has reached its ceiling last year. It will be interesting to see if there will be a big mid-season drop off like last season, or if we go back to the season 1-4 pattern, where the viewership rose steadily after the premiere.

    HBO GO and HBO NOW most certainly count towards live viewers.

  117. Tobin: but the show did not set a new record in live viewers, and that’s still the most important number.

    Ummm…. no! 😀 HBO is not NBC or CBS or ABC, where I have to ff through the ads…… and the ads fund those channels. For HBO, I have to pay extra while GoT is on, so subscribers fund those channels.

    Great numbers!

  118. Ghosts Afternoon Tea: Personally I expect it to actually increase in the coming weeks given the obsession there seems to be regarding Jon Snow which is creeping into pop culture, after that it will relax for eps 5 and 6 and then pick up strongly for the end of the season when there is presumably Cleganebowl and Snowbowl etc

    I would not count on that. People will go back to their usual routines of watching the show when it suits them after this. Those viewers that expected Jon to get revived (and although that is a lot of them, it is far from all of them: remember, the vast majority of the viewers paid no attention to anything about the show for 9+ months) probably expected him to be so on Sunday. Now, they probably figure that it’s going to get dragged out and will watch it when they know it’s going to happen.

    That stated, I expect the ratings to rise at the end of the year, and for the viewership of the whole series to equal last year’s.

  119. Just like I said… the overnights wouldn’t be much different than last year because the customer base hasn’t grown much. However, with the free time, that overall number will be massive when they finally release it.

  120. Tobin:
    You really shouldn’t copy HBO promo speak. Of course they can always find numbers best suited for them, but the show did not set a new record in live viewers, and that’s still the most important number.

    This is wildly ignorant. Live viewers are important for ad sales ONLY. HBO sells no ads. Please educate yourself better on ratings. Thanks.

  122. I’m glad they don’t mass release all of the episodes like Netflix. So much nicer to space it out over 10 weeks or else I’d watch the whole thing in 1 day and then have a whole year to wait for season 7. Also, it’s nice to have a whole week to discuss the episode knowing that everyone is on the same footing. With a mass release, everyone is at different points and it’s harder to discuss.

  123. GeekFurious,

    The UK has reported record numbers.

    And streaming services, without free trial, grew too.

    But yes I think we reached a ceiling, we could see bigger numbers towards the ending though.

    But no reason to complain, every show would dream to have these numbers.

  124. Something about Liam’s comment:
    “From the get-go this season, there’s an immediate threat to his life. Melisandre is there as well and the powers she has may prove to be very useful.”
    It makes me wonder if Melisandre doesn’t resurrect Jon, but simply glamours someone (Davos, Edd) to look like him. That would explain how Kit could still be in the show while Jon stays dead.

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