All told, the Season 6 premiere roped in more than 10.7 million viewers, which is more than 400,000 over the previous record.
Advertisement
Game of Thrones has made its highly-anticipated return to television screens as it was reported the first episode of the sixth series was leaked online.
After the long winter, which stretched from June to April, spring has sprung and brought with it new episodes of Game of Thrones.
Before HBO Go and HBO Now became popular avenues to consume the network’s content, viewership was exclusively calculated using Nielsen, an audience measurement system that uses statistical samplings to determine TV ratings. However, if we look just at the 9 p.m. telecast, the hit HBO drama clocked 7.94 million total viewers and a 4.2 rating among adults 18-49. The convenience of streaming video compared to live viewing has meant that the ratings have been able to grow rather than peter out as sometimes happens with a long-running series.
Of course, as HBO Now and “Game of Thrones” in general aren’t easily accessed globally, and thus has resulted in record-breaking piracy, according to Torrent Freak.
By comparison, Seven’s My Kitchen Rules was the most-watched TV show on Monday with 1.6 million metropolitan viewers, and 2.4 million nationally, ahead of the cooking show’s grand finale on Tuesday night. It won a record 12 Emmys at last year’s awards.
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”.
NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.1 million viewers.
Advertisement
However, 2015’s fifth season launch did not benefit from having a simulcast at 2am, so more people watched at 9pm.
