Thrones ratings on the rise in US, steady in UK
More good news on the ratings front! James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the viewer total for the initial airing of Game of Thrones has risen this week compared to the previous two weeks, from roughly 2.2 million viewers to 2.4 million viewers.
HBO should kill a wolf every week!
Despite the previous week’s untimely direwolf death that rankled some viewers, HBO’s Game of Thrones rose in the ratings for the first time Sunday night. The show’s Sunday’s 9 p.m. airing was seen by 2.4 million, up from the past two weeks’ 2.2 million.
Sunday night’s airings may have been impacted somewhat by Osama bin Laden’s death announcement on the West Coast, though the show had finished on the East Coast before the news leaked.
Meanwhile, across the pond, Digital Spy reports that the ratings for Thrones held steady on Sky Atlantic.
Game of Thrones steadied its UK audience to around 510k last night for Sky Atlantic, early viewing figures indicate.
Starring Sean Bean, the medieval fantasy drama – recently renewed by US network HBO for a second season – grabbed 506k (1.9%) in the 9pm hour for its latest installment ‘Lord Snow’.
Winter Is Coming: Good news all around! The US number is rising, which is great. And it may have even risen more if the Osama news didn’t overshadow the West Coast showing, as Hibberd notes. It will be interesting to see next week’s numbers with no holiday and no huge news to detract from the total.
And in the UK, Thrones hasn’t been able to hold onto the huge 750k+ opening figure, but 510k still makes Thrones Sky Atlantic’s top rated show. As long as the show holds steady, I think Sky will be very pleased.
UPDATE: Hibberd has added the numbers for the 11 PM encore showing. He also reports on the new sum of total viewers for the premiere.
Combined with the 11 p.m. airing, the show climbed to 3.1 million viewers, well above the previous standard of 2.9 million. Meanwhile Thrones premiere episode has climbed up to 8.7 million viewers via all the HBO platforms.
UPDATE 2: Adam Whitehead notes that the total cumulative viewers for the premiere in the UK has been released and the numbers stands at 1.8 million.
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