HBO's new fantasy series "Game of Thrones" is definitely living by the sword — and living quite well by it, according to the ratings.
The cable outlet announced Tuesday that Sunday night's second episode of the George R.R. Martin adaptation matched last week's premiere, with 2.2 million viewers for its 9 p.m. airing.
An encore run of the episode at 11 p.m. snapped up an additional 732,000 pairs of eyeballs, which came within a dragon's breath of the previous week's encore airing, which drew 755,000 viewers.
Overall, the "Game of Thrones" premiere garnered 4.2 million total viewers between its three airings last Sunday. According to HBO, that number has since shot past 6.8 million, thanks to additional platforms such as DVR and the cable outlet's HBO on Demand service.
The premiere's strong showing prompted HBO to renew the series for a second season last Tuesday, just two days after the series premiere.
HBO also announced that the season two premiere of David Simon's New Orleans-based series "Treme," which aired following "Game of Thrones" at 10 p.m., averaged 605,000 viewers, with an additional 135,000 viewers tuning in for its midnight encore airing. Last April's series premiere drew 1.1 million total viewers.
