Game of Thrones wins Sunday night (duh), but viewership falls (doh)
The ratings for “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken,” the latest episode of Game of Thrones‘ fifth season, are in. On the surface, it was business as usual. The episode pulled in 6.24 million live viewers and scored a 3.1 rating among adults 18-49. Those are impressive numbers by any measure and were more enough to win the show the night among its cable brethren. However, these are also the lowest numbers of the season, and for the second week in a row, the show was watched by less fewer people live than it was during the same time last year.
There’re a couple of caveats here. The most obvious is that, drop in viewership or not, these numbers are still the envy of most cable shows out there, and are well above what Game of Thrones itself was pulling in only two years ago. Also, “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” was competing with broadcast heavyweights like the Billboard Music Awards and, unexpectedly enough, CBS’ I Love Lucy Superstar Special, which posted excellent numbers. Finally, just because the ratings dropped doesn’t necessarily mean that the episode was watched by fewer people. Last week, “Kill the Boy” pulled in smaller numbers than the week before, but it was also pirated more than any other episode in the show’s history. The universe seems to have a way of balancing these things out.
Still, it’s worth noting that Game of Thrones has probably received more criticism for this season than for any other, with the slow pace and cartoonish antics down in Dorne absorbing the lion’s share of flak. Some people have even threatened to stop watching (and writing about) the show following what happened to Sansa in the latest episode, so we’ll see if that’s reflected in the numbers come next week. The numbers could also be undercut by HBO’s efforts to make the show easier to view outside the live broadcast on platforms like HBO Now. It would help to have an idea of how many people are watching the episodes on the days after they air, but we’ll have to wait to get a clearer picture of that.
Spoiler Alert!
Please take care to tag spoilers in your comments by wrapping them with <spoiler></spoiler>. Spoilers in comments are hidden by a gray overlay. To reveal, simply hover or tap on the text!