THE highly anticipated return of Game of Thrones set a new Australian TV record.
Advertisement
The episode, titled The Red Woman, aired at the same time as the United States and achieved a total audience of 727,000.
Season six reportedly cost HBO a hefty US$100 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive TV shows ever produced. It needed to establish the location of most of the key players, give a quick reminder about what’s going on, and start setting up the pieces it’ll slowly move over the course of the next few episodes. No matter where its many characters end up this season, it seems likely that Game of Thrones might once again find itself atop the throne for “Most Pirated Show”.
As the first season that doesn’t directly correlate with one of George R.R. Martin’s novels, buzz was even higher than usual for this year’s “Game of Thrones”, whose creators have touted as “the best one yet”.
Game of Thrones’ season six premiere broke viewing records for Sky drama with a total of 2.2 million watching the opening episode of season six.
The ratings of Game of Thrones’ season 6 premiere aren’t what viewers would expect.
However, the number is down on the season five opener, which was watched 1.5 million times in the first eight hours of broadcast and was eventually downloaded over 10 million times.
Following HBO’s entertainment series on Sunday, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” drew 1.343 million viewers, up by almost 500,000 viewers week to week (from 849,000).
The publication noted, though, that the show’s 9 p.m. premiere (with 7.9 million viewers) had a 1 percent drop from past year.
Viewers from HBO’s free preview weekend aren’t counted in those Nielsen ratings.
There’s lots to chew on here in terms of how we track television ratings and the growing effect that streaming services may be having on those numbers. Given that the show is not ad-supported, I would guess the latter.
Advertisement
The long-awaited sixth season of Game of Thrones returned to screens on Sunday.
