As “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” wrapped up its first installment on HBO, the “Game of Thrones” spinoff soared to ratings success — reaching an audience bigger than that of the third season of the flagship — proving that it pays off to experiment with beloved franchise IP.
While the first “Game of Thrones” prequel series, “House of the Dragon,” faithfully followed the beloved original George R.R. Martin TV adaption with big budgets, established stars and frequent major battle scenes featuring graphic violence, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” took a new approach as it embraced a more contained story — following an unlikely pair of companions rather than a whole kingdom filled with houses vying for power — in shorter episodes with more humor and less nudity and epic violence — but still enough DNA to qualify as a “Game of Thrones” entry.
“George [R.R. Martin] and Ira [Parker] envisioned this from the start as a single POV story in contrast to the more sprawling dramas in the universe. It makes it more personal, and I think viewers are eager to follow an underdog hero in this world,” HBO drama chief Francesca Orsi told TheWrap in an email, noting that they noticed big interest in the “individual storylines in ‘Game of Thrones.’ “
Orsi added that audiences are resonating with the titular knight Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), “who believes in his code and is doing the right thing no matter the consequences” — a theme she believes is “particularly relevant today.”
The success of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” which saw audience momentum build as its six-episode season went on, offers a blueprint for how to reinvigorate a franchise by taking risks and defying audience expectations. In this case, the personal focus on Dunk and Egg ran counter to the grander stories of the past, satisfying the desire for something fresh set in a well-beloved universe.
The experiment paid off for HBO in a big way, with the premiere of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” landing among the top three series launches in HBO Max’s history, scoring 6.7 million viewers across both platforms in three days.
Though the series was short of the 19 million viewers that tuned in to the “House of the Dragon” series premiere back in 2022, it outperformed recent series premieres of other IP-based genre series, including “It: Welcome to Derry,” which debuted to 5.7 million viewers over three days in October 2025. “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” also beat the debuts of both “Dune: Prophecy,” which scored 1.2 million viewers in November 2024, and even “The Last of Us,” whose series debut delivered 4.7 million viewers. It should be noted, however, that those premieres only include one day of viewing data, with HBO shifting to reporting live-plus-three-day numbers in recent years to adapt to the streaming landscape.
Viewership for “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” grew week-over-week (with the exception of Episode 4, which had an early debut ahead of Super Bowl Sunday). Episode 5 hit a series-high viewership of 9.2 million for the big battle episode. By the finale, the spinoff hit another series high of 9.5 million viewers, still shy of the 17.3 million viewers that tuned in to the “House of the Dragon” Season 1 finale —as well as the 15.5 million viewers and nearly 14 million viewers that tuned into the Season 2 premiere and finale, respectively.
Overall, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is averaging 15.5 million viewers and growing (HBO counts average viewership through 90 days after debut). While the audience is nearly half of the 29 million viewers scored by “House of the Dragon” Season 1, and down from “House of the Dragon” Season 2’s average viewership of nearly 25 million, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” has already well surpassed the average viewership of the first three seasons of “Game of Thrones,” which drew 9.3 million viewers, 11.6 million viewers and 14.4 million viewers, respectively.
While “House of the Dragon” made the impressive feat of surpassing the 25.7 million viewers “Game of Thrones” averaged in its sixth season, it seems nearly impossible to reach the 32.8 million viewers “GoT” averaged by Season 7, same with the whopping 46 million viewers the show averaged in its eighth and final season — which marked a moment of peak water cooler TV that even “The Last of Us” nor the newest season of “The White Lotus” couldn’t reach.
With “House of the Dragon” expected to come to an end with its fourth season — which would take the spinoff series through 2028 — “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is well positioned to take on the “Game of Thrones” torch, with its first season already proving to capture a notable segment of the franchise’s audience, on a cheaper budget.
The show is projected to cost under $10 million per episode, significantly lower than the projected $15 million episodic budget for the final season of “Game of Thrones” and $20 million per episode for “House of the Dragon.”
While Parker expressed interest in the show extending through 12 seasons, Orsi remained tight-lipped about the potential longevity of “Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”
“This show was renewed for a second season even before it aired, because we’ve fully embraced it, but we’ll have to have conversations with Ira and George down the road for any stories past these novellas,” Orsi said.
“Survivor 50” makes some noise
The Feb. 25 premiere of “Survivor 50” brought in 5.1 million viewers, boosting CBS to its most-watched Wednesday night since the “Survivor” Season 42 finale in 2022.
Not only was the debut the most-watched “Survivor episode since the Season 45 finale, it also saw a 26% uptick from the fall 2025 premiere as well as a 19% rise from the spring 2025 debut.
ABC Tuesday dramas win
ABC’s Tuesday drama slate of “High Potential,” “Will Trent” and “The Rookie” ranked within the top five broadcast shows of the season so far, according to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day multiplatform viewing. While CBS’ “Tracker” took the top spot with an average 14.1 million viewers, “High Potential” came next with 12.7 million viewers. Next was CBS’ “Matlock” with 9.8 million viewers while “Will Trent” and “The Rookie” scored 9.6 and 9.2 million viewers, respectively. It should be noted, however, that these viewing figures run through Feb. 8, prior to the debut of most CBS series.
Post-Olympics hockey thrives
ESPN picked up the hockey torch following those Olympic gold medal matchups, with the Thursday game between the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers scoring 615,000 viewers — up 51% over last season’s NHL on ESPN average — while Saturday’s doubleheader saw the Pittsburgh Penguins-New York Rangers game average 973,000 viewers and Boston Bruins-Philadelphia Flyers game average 1.1 million viewers.
On Sunday, the Florida Panthers-New York Islanders delivered 668,000 viewers. Through 27 games, the NHL on ESPN and ABC is averaging 785,000 viewers, rising 17% year-over-year.
ICYMI
- The “Yellowstone” spinoff series “Marshals” debuted Sunday to 9.5 million viewers, becoming the most-watched scripted series debut without a football lead-in since 2018.
- The “Scrubs” reboot drew 11.4 million views over five days of viewing across ABC, Hulu, Hulu on Disney+ and digital platforms, marking the biggest audience for an ABC comedy episode and ABC series debut overall on streaming in over a year since the series premiere of “Shifting Gears” in January 2025.
- The Part 2 drop of “Bridgerton” Season 4 brought the romance series back atop the Netflix top 10 TV list with 28 million views, matching last installment.
