TV Ratings: HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ Draws 10M Viewers

Nearly 10 million people saw the premiere of “House of the Dragon” on Sunday night, making the “Game of Thrones” spinoff HBO’s most-watched series premiere in the network’s history, according to The Associated Press citing Nielsen data.

HBO aired the episode four times on premiere night and it was also streamed on HBO Max. The viewership number is only going to increase in the coming weeks.

For instance, the “Game of Throne” series finale in May 2019 was seen on its first night by 19.8 million, more than any other series episode on HBO, the Nielsen company said. HBO estimates that some 46 million people in total have seen it, when delayed viewing is taken into account.

The network plans to televise a new episode of “House of the Dragon” every Sunday through Oct. 23.

“The ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel recaptured the fire of HBO’s original masterpiece in a big way,” said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO of the research firm Samba TV. That company estimated that the HBO series more than doubled the first-day viewership for Netflix’s new season of “Stranger Things” this summer.

The only other broadcast or cable program to average more than 5 million viewers was the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” which averaged 5.441 million viewers for an edition with three previously aired segments that were updated for Sunday’s broadcast.

CBS was the most popular broadcast network in prime time last week, averaging 2.8 million viewers. NBC had 2.7 million, ABC had 2.4 million, Fox had 1.9 million, Ion Television had 1.04 million, Univision had 1.01 million and Telemundo had 810,000.

Episodes of “America’s Got Talent” and “Password,” which follows it on NBC, accounted for four of the top nine programs on broadcast or cable programs. The 121-minute “America’s Got Talent” episode on Tuesday, Aug. 16, averaged 6.437 million viewers to finish first for the fourth consecutive week and sixth time in eight weeks.

The Tuesday “Password” episode averaged 3.971 million viewers, ninth for the week and first among programs beginning at 10 p.m. or later.

The 61-minute “America’s Got Talent” Wednesday episode was second, averaging 5.642 million viewers. The Wednesday “Password” episode was fifth, averaging 4.361 million.

“Celebrity Family Feud” was ABC’s ratings leader for the eighth time in the eight weeks since the conclusion of the network’s coverage of the Stanley Cup Final, averaging 4.541 million viewers, fourth for the week.

Sunday’s first episode matched teams led by Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater Nathan Chen and actor Simu Liu, while Grammy-winning R&B singer Monica and rapper-producer-record executive Jermaine Dupri led the teams for the second game.

Fox averaged 1.89 million viewers. Its most-watched program was Sunday’s Arizona-Baltimore NFL preseason game, 21st overall and first among prime-time sporting events, averaging 3.217 million viewers.

📺Top 20 Prime-Time Shows for Aug. 15-22 (Total Viewers):

1. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.44 million.

2. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 5.64 million.

3. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 5.44 million.

4. “Celebrity Family Feud,” ABC, 4.54 million.

5. “Password” (Wednesday), NBC, 4.36 million.

6. “The $100,000 Pyramid,” ABC, 4.1 million.

7. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 4.06 million.

8. “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” ABC, 3.98 million.

9. “Password” (Tuesday), NBC, 3.97 million.

10. “Big Brother” (Sunday), CBS, 3.95 million.

11. “FBI,” CBS, 3.57 million.

12. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Monday), Fox News, 3.432 million.

13. “Press Your Luck,” ABC, 3.425 million.

14. “Big Brother” (Thursday), CBS, 3.42 million.

15. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Wednesday), Fox News, 3.38 million.

16. “The Bachelorette,” ABC, 3.294 million.

17. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Tuesday), Fox News, 3.294 million.

18. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 3.258 million.

19. “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,” ABC, 3.258 million.

20. “FBI International,” CBS, 3.245 million.

📺BROADCAST EVENING NEWS:

ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 7.2 million viewers last week. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 6.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 4.2 million.

Lester Holt returned to the NBC Nightly News anchor desk after a week off, and the newscast averaged 6.09 million total viewers on the linear network. That’s -1% from the week prior when Tom Llamas and Kate Snow guest-hosted the newscast. According to TV Newser, the week-to-week drop off likely has more to do with the “calming” of the news cycle than any personnel changes.   Across NBC News digital, Nightly News had its best week since March for the second week in a row, with 16.8 million video views and 1.6 million hours viewed on & off network platforms. Weekday episodes of Nightly reached 657,000 viewers on YouTube. This is according to data from Adobe Analytics and Partner Portals as well as YouTube Analytics Portal.

The CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell averaged 4.24 million total viewers and 679,000 adults 25-54 for the third week of August. 

As for morning news...Good Morning America just keeps on winning the morning ratings race.  ABC’s flagship morning show extended its win streak to six straight weeks as the No. 1 morning news show in total viewers and adults 25-54. GMA is also celebrating being the No.1 morning show in total viewers for the 10th year in a row, more than doubling its lead over NBC’s Toda

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

Additionally, the final episode of CNN’s Reliable Sources hosted by Brian Stelter averaged 769,000 total viewers at 11 a.m. ET, making it CNN’s most-watched show on Sunday, Aug. 21. CNN’s second quarter average in the Sunday 11 a.m. timeslot was 649,000 total viewers. The Reliable Sources finale beat its MSNBC timeslot competition, but came up short to Fox News’ MediaBuzz in all measurements.

📺CABLE TV

Fox News Channel led the cable networks with a prime-time average of 2.31 million. MSNBC had 1.32 million, ESPN had 896,000, Hallmark had 870,000 and HGTV had 866,000.

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN

In terms of individual programming, The Five begins a new streak as the most-watched cable news show after having ceded it the previous week. The news talk panel program averaged 3.41 million total viewers during the week of August 15, No. 1 overall. Tucker Carlson Tonight took second place in total viewers (3.29 million at 8 p.m.), followed by Hannity (2.84 million at 9 p.m.), MSNBC’s weekly The Rachel Maddow Show (2.75 million at 9 p.m.), with The Ingraham Angle (2.5 million at 7 p.m.) rounding out the top five. 

Tucker Carlson Tonight (470,000), The Five (404,000), Hannity (385,000), Gutfeld! (379,000) and The Ingraham Angle (371,ooo) were the top five cable news offerings for the week among adults 25-54, according to TV Newser.

📺SYNDICATED DAYTIME TV

TVNewsCheck reports Entertainment Tonight was the star of the magazine shows in the otherwise sleepy summer session ending Aug. 14, spiking 11% to a nine-week high 2.0 live-plus-same-day national Nielsen rating.   The big gain came despite the Emmy-winning program having its primary runs preempted by preseason football in several key markets — including New York — on Aug. 12. ET also surged 17% among women 25-54 to lead all magazines in the key demo.

The only other magazine moving up in households was ET’s sister series Inside Edition, which edged ahead 5% to a 2.1.

Family Feud finished first in the game show competition for the second week in a row, and the third time in four weeks, although it slipped 4% to a 5.0 due mainly to a large number of preemptions for the Field of Dreams Game on Fox.

Live with Kelly and Ryan relinquished 7% to a 1.4, but still was the Nielsen No.1-rated talk show for the 50th time in the last 65 weeks, including 16 ties with Dr. Phil. Phil, in repeats all week, gave back 7% to a 1.3.  Encore episodes of the soon-to-depart Ellen DeGeneres continued to draw a crowd, climbing 17%, the most of any talker.

“The Sandman” was Netflix’s most-streamed program for the second time in its two full weeks of release, with viewers spending 77.24 million hours watching the 10 episodes of the fantasy drama between Aug. 15 and Sunday, according to figures released Tuesday by the streaming service.

Viewership was down 39.4% from the 127.5 million hours watched the previous week.

“Day Shift” was Netflix’s top-ranked film for the second time in its two weeks of release, with viewers watching the vampire action comedy for 63.39 million hours, 12.2% more than the 56.15 million hours the previous week when it was available for three days.