UPDATED: Early ratings for Thrones not as good as hoped
The official numbers won’t come out until tomorrow, but some early numbers from last night’s premiere of Game of Thrones have come out. Vulture is reporting that they have obtained data that shows that Thrones premiered with a 1.6 share (mind that share is not the same as number of viewers).
According to data obtained by Vulture, GoT earned a 1.6 rating in Nielsen’s overnight household sample. By way of comparison, last September’s debut of Boardwalk Empire on HBO averaged a 2.8 rating in the overnights. Household ratings aren’t used much anymore, with most networks tending to look at overall viewership or demographic averages to gauge a program’s success. What’s more, because of HBO’s smaller distribution — it’s in about 28 million homes — household overnight ratings can vary substantially from the national total viewer figure. All of these caveats aside, down is down: Based on this snapshot of its performance, it’s clear GoT won’t come close to matching the nearly 5 million viewers who watched the Boardwalk Empire premiere in September.
Winter Is Coming: Assuming Vulture’s source is legit, and I have no reason to assume it isn’t, than this number isn’t as good as hoped. As they say, total viewers is the number everyone is really interested in, but this early number seems to indicate that getting close to 5 million viewers is highly unlikely. It is looking like 3 million viewers (or less) may have tuned into last night’s premiere.
UPDATE by HmR: One way or another, we are getting the official numbers later today, which will give some definite answers and hopefully dispel any worries. Meanwhile, initial news from the other side of the Pond is very good: Game of Thrones got highest ratings of all shows on Sky Atlantic so far. More context provided by The Wertzone.
UPDATE by WiC: Media analyst Brad Adgate is reporting that the total viewer number for the premiere of Game of Thrones was 2.22 million. The median age was 44.2.
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