House of the Dragon Breaks European Records For HBO

Just when you think the Game of Thrones universe couldn’t break any more viewership records, House of the Dragon goes and ups the ante once again. You see that photo above? That’s the Lord Hand Otto Hightower letting King Viserys I know how well their TV show performed, and how pleased the media executives will be. In news that will surprise no one, HBO’s European platforms, aptly titled HBO and HBO Max, debuted to record numbers, just like it did in the US, and on Sky Atlantic over in the UK. Let’s explore the numbers…

“The platform saw unprecedented demand starting in the early hours which peaked on Monday evening,” an HBO statement read. Well, that’s not shocking at all. I mean, HBO Max crashed on Sunday, ruining my own viewing experience among many others’ so I’m thoroughly unsurprised to hear there was unprecedented demand. Here’s the only frustrating catch…in a very annoying trend for streamers these days, HBO didn’t mention just how big the numbers were:

House of the Dragon’ is by far the biggest launch in the history of HBO and HBO Max in Europe, breaking previous records for a new title. The number of viewers for the first episode exceeded all expectations.

Well, that’s great! What…were those expectations, exactly? Ah, who knows! As a reminder, nearly 10 million viewers watched live on Sunday night, either on linear HBO or on HBO Max, comprising only an estimated 20%-40% of HBO’s ultimate total viewership by the time everyone else plays catchup in order to keep up with their remote job’s virtual watercooler (waterzoomer?) But I digress.

Meanwhile, over in the UK, nearly 1 million late night caffeinated Brits stayed up into the wee hours of 2am, to watch the 9pm EST broadcast. Another 394,000 popped in the next day to watch it on Sky to watch at the more traditional 21:00pm UTC+1 hour (that’s 9pm in American lingo). Said Sky’s managing director, Zai Bennett:

“Viewing over the last 24 hours for House of the Dragon across Sky and NOW has been as epic as the show itself…The response has already been phenomenal — and we’re confident the figures will grow significantly once all on demand figures consolidate and we have the total picture of viewing.”

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