Game Of Thrones Is Somehow Getting More Viewers Than House Of The Dragon
Game of Thrones is beating out House of the Dragon in total viewership minutes.
Game of Thrones aired its final episode in May 2019, but the fantasy series continues to be a massive hit for HBO. According to ComicBookResources, the show is outperforming its brand-new spin-off series House of the Dragon in terms of minutes watched. On the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 chart between August 22nd to August 28th, Games of Thrones clocked in a whopping 909 million viewing minutes, putting it well above its prequel show’s 741 million viewing minutes.
Since House of the Dragon premiered just a little over a month ago, it likely brought some renewed interest to Game of Thrones. The series, which aired from 2011 to 2019, has a total of 73 episodes available to stream on HBO Max. Meanwhile, Dragon just has five, with the sixth episode premiering on September 25th.
Games of Thrones premiere averaged about 9.3 million viewers per episode in its first season, which is an impressive feat considering there were much fewer places for the show to be watched. The series ran for eight seasons, consistently growing its viewership each season. The popular series ended its eighth season with an average of 46 million viewers per episode, and it appears House of the Dragon is taking a similar path.
When the first episode of House of the Dragon dropped, it pulled in nearly 10 million people across all platforms, making it HBO’s biggest series premiere ever. The second episode saw an increase in viewers with 10.2 million, and the total number of viewers continues to increase with each additional episode. The folks at HBO are undoubtedly celebrating the show’s success and the fact that they have another major hit on their hands.
HBO is known to push the envelope on its original shows, often featuring a large amount of violence and sexual content, and House of the Dragon is no exception. Even though some scenes from the series have been at the center of controversy for being outright disturbing, with one particular scene involving a character giving birth, it hasn’t kept fans from flocking to watch. In fact, on Rotten Tomatoes the show sits with an 85% fresh rating from audiences.
House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin’s 2018 novel titled Fire & Blood. Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series centers on the House Targaryen. Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans make up the stellar cast.
George R.R. Martin co-created House of the Dragon with Ryan Condal. The latter also serves as a co-showrunner with director Miguel Sapochnik. We reported a few weeks back, however, Sapochnik has opted to depart the series making Condal the sole showrunner going into the second season, which has already been announced by HBO.
The first season of House of the Dragon will consist of 10 episodes. The sixth episode, which is titled The Princess and the Queen, will premiere Sunday, September 25th. In the meantime, the previous five episodes are available to stream on HBO Max.
