Even with HBO Max crashing right out of the gate, House of the Dragon still managed to bring in record-breaking numbers and claim the throne as the “strongest digital premiere performance of any HBO episode.” The Game of Thrones prequel series also managed to take out Stranger Things 4, which had been dominating streaming (and music) charts for almost the entire summer.
According to new numbers from Samba, the House of the Dragon premiere brought in 2.6 million households during its first six hours. Stranger Things 4: Volume One only brought 1.2 million for its first day, which means the HBO series more than doubled the haul of the Hawkins crew during its debut. Via Deadline:
Ashwin Navin, Co-Founder & CEO, Samba TV beamed, “HBO has once again tapped into the magic of Game of Thrones with its spinoff series, House of the Dragon. Diehard GoT fans have been eagerly anticipating more from the franchise and they turned out in force for House of the Dragon, with the HBO program generating the biggest single day premium cable or streaming viewership premiere in 2022. More than doubling initial same-day viewership of Netflix’s Season 4 premiere of Stranger Things, the Game of Thrones prequel recaptured the fire of HBO’s original masterpiece in a big way.”
Of course, the big question is whether House of the Dragon can match the same momentum as Stranger Things 4, which picked up even more steam for its Volume Two premiere.
“Just as Stranger Things’ most recent Season 4, Volume Two drop surpassed its Volume One audience, HBO must look to innovative marketing that drives incremental audience growth to break through today’s saturated content marketplace,” Navin said.
Considering House of the Dragon lit up an entire apartment building three years after Game of Thrones went off the air, and quite disastrously some might say, it’s probably a safe bet that the show will continue to pick up speed with audiences. Unless something goes way south like one of the dragons starts talking about the power of a good story. In that case, run.
(Via Deadline)
