‘Game of Thrones’ is over and it is now officially the most viewed HBO show ever.
The 8th and final season already broke numerous records for viewership, including drawing an average of 44.2 million viewers each and every Sunday. That number puts them 10 million over any kind of average they had for season seven. This season has also produced five of the six most watched ‘Game of Thrones’ episodes in the entire series (with the season seven finale being the exception).
The finale piled in 13.6 million for its initial airing on Sunday night. That figure later jumped to 19.2 million after replays and re-runs.
Per THR:
Game of Thrones was the second major series finale of the week. Three days prior, The Big Bang Theory signed off after 12 seasons on CBS with 18.52 million viewers, which will likely end up well above 20 million after a week of delayed viewing. (As a broadcast network, CBS reaches more than twice as many homes as subscription-based HBO.)
Prior to that the most watched episode on HBO was the season 4 premiere of Sopranos back in 2002 which drew 13.43 million viewers. Now, Thrones has that record.
Some other good news for HBO is that Bill Hader’s dark-comedy ‘Barry’ season finale also set an all-time record with 2.7 million on its initial run.
People have asked what will happen to HBO after ‘Game of Thrones’ and in all honesty, it just adds another notch onto their belt. With 3 more spinoffs being planned for the series and Watchmen & Westworld’s latest seasons coming out in the next couple of years, HBO is going to be just fine.
