There had been some grumblings earlier this season about viewers fleeing Game of Thrones in the wake of what some saw as upsetting plotlines involving the sexual assault of its characters. In fact, Senator Claire McCaskill announced on Twitter that she would no longer be watching the HBO series, while the website The Mary Sue decided it would no longer promote or recap the series. There was a lot of grumbling in the fan community, and the ratings reflected their frustrations.
In fact, after four weeks of declining numbers, last week Game of Thrones had its lowest rated episode in two seasons. It seemed that, perhaps, Game of Thrones had reached its peak and was plateauing.
Not so! Turns out, all you really need is one of the best episodes in the Game of Thrones run, and those ratings will bounce back and make viewers forget all about their issues with previous episodes (for a week, anyway). This week’s Game of Thrones episode was seen by over 7 million overnight viewers, up from the 5.4 million viewers the previous week.
The holiday weekend obviously played some role in the lower rated episode on Memorial Day weekend (Game of Thrones usually does not air new episodes over that holiday), but even still, “Hardhome” was an improvement over every other episode this season since the premiere. It also slightly bested the overnight ratings for the last huge battle on Game of Thrones, “The Watchers on the Wall” (6.95 million).
So, for anyone concerned that Game of Thrones is losing its audience, there’s no need to worry. Game of Thrones remains strong. In fact, its closest competition on Sunday night was Keeping up with the Kardashians, which scored 2.4 million live viewers. It’s heartening to know that, at the very least, Jon Snow’s battle with White Walkers nearly tripled Kim Kardashian’s trip to the mall.
(Via Headline Planet)
