« Game of Thrones » kicked off with a bang.
« Game of Thrones » kicked off with a bang.
The Season 7 premiere drew an astounding 10.1 million linear viewers for the 9 p.m. telecast, according to Nielsen. Viewership surpassed that of the previous season’s premiere by 27%.
Nielsen reported the « Game of Thrones » Season 7 premiere smashed a record, established during the show’s Season 6 finale, for drawing 8.9 million viewers.
While 10.1 million viewers is impressive, it’s believed the audience was actually much larger.
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According to HBO, factoring in viewers who caught linear replays of the premiere or streamed it on HBO GO or HBO Now, the audience is closer to 16.1 million people — a 50% total increase over the Season 6 finale.
The episode is now the most watched premiere in HBO’s history.
In 2014, the show stole another record from a wildly popular HBO series. Entertainment Weekly reported that two episodes shy of the Season 4 conclusion, « Game of Thrones » surpassed « The Sopranos » as the most-watched show on the premium cable network.
At the time, the show was averaging a total of 18.4 million gross viewers across all platforms. The previous record was set at 18.2 million.
Let’s examine two parts of the ‘Game of Thrones’ premiere
Should « Game of Thrones » continue on its current trajectory, it will likely shatter that record by the end of Season 7.
Audiences were so big that HBO’s website, as well as their streaming services, was overwhelmed. Several users shared their frustrations about site and app crashes while trying to view the premiere of the penultimate season.
« Another GoT premiere, another predictable HBO Go crash, » tweeted one person.
An HBO rep told the Daily News HBO GO users in Latin America were experiencing outages, but claimed they weren’t seeing any major issues in the United States.
Those that were able to catch the premiere on Sunday weren’t disappointed — at least not completely. While « Game of Thrones » fans seemed to enjoy the Season 7 opener, most weren’t happy about a not-so-subtle celebrity cameo.
Midway through the first episode, Arya Stark — played by Maisie Williams — happens upon a group of Lannister soldiers singing, drinking wine and cooking rabbit in the woods.
Among them was Ed Sheeran, whom showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss confirmed had been cast back in March. Fans quickly took to Twitter to express their discontent over the « Shape of You » singer’s appearance on the show.
Sheeran, 26, hasn’t responded to the backlash, but appears to have deleted his Twitter.
Tune in to « Game of Thrones » Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
