Game of Thrones viewership rises to 7 million with episode 8 

The cards were stacked in favour of high live viewership numbers this week: no leaks, no holiday, a great preceding episode, and possibly more. Whatever the exact constellation of factors – the initial airing of “Hardhome” was seen by a very round number of 7.00 million people. It won the night on cable quite comfortably.

The numbers are highest since the season premiere, needless to say. In the past weeks, 

has also gained most in terms of absolute ratings when delayed viewing (Live + 7 days) is compared to the Live + same day numbers. Here are reports of available numbers from two weeks and one week ago (remember that those refer to episodes airing three and two weeks ago, respectively). Last week’s episode rose by 67 % in Live+3 days views already, signalling the higher numbers this week.

 So much for doomsaying. Every season so far has had a slower middle part, and while this season the effect was perhaps bigger due to Dorne scenes being subpar, I do not believe the season has been worse than previous ones – and there’s two more episodes to go. Here is a favourite graph of mine, plotting IMDb scores of individual episodes (the latest one is not in yet), indicating that viewers seem to have liked the season so far.

Since people are apparently raving about this week’s episode, that bodes well for the initial viewing numbers next week as well – the fact that it will be the 9th episode of the season might attract even more. However, what I’m most interested in is average total viewers per episode this year, but we may need to wait a bit longer for that piece of data.

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Impossible. The show was done. Didn’t you all read the comments section last week? All the experts knew everything.

Yeah, I said this earlier, but this rebound + the buzz from the episode + next week being episode 9 = I’m optimistic about viewership going up. Maybe not record setting yet, but I’ll be mildly surprised if we don’t see a bump.

I always kind of expected the finale to bounce back to premiere-level just because it’s, you know, the finale. If anything is going to be appointment viewing, it’s the premiere and the finale.

But after this, I’m definitely more confident in that expectation.

So… the sky isn’t falling apart after all? Nice to read this after all the apocalyptic “the show will get cancelled” and “HBO will cut the budget” crap I saw in a lot of sites last week.

Excellent news. So pleased that so many people tuned in for such an amazing episode. After that final battle Im expecting a bumper number for episode 9 next week.

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