How high will the ratings go for “Game of Throne’s” season 6 premiere on Sunday? That’s a question that reverberates far beyond Westeros.
Once a little-known fantasy book adaptation, HBO’s fantasy epic initially premiered in 2011 to just 2.8 million total viewers. The audience grew by a million for the first season’s finale. That’s a pretty good increase, until you consider that by the Season 5 finale, the overall audience number was just shy of 10.5 million.
Like the HBO fantasy series, that’s epic.
Will “GoT” hit a new peak on Sunday? Hard to tell.
Despite marking the (apparent) death of fan-favorite Jon Snow (Kit Harington), the season 5 closer, with 10.426 million total viewers, was not the series’ most-watched episode. That honor goes to the fifth season’s premiere, which grabbed 10.461 million overall audience members after seven days of delayed viewing.
By the way, the infamous Red Wedding episode, officially called “The Rains of Castamere,” scored 6.7 million total viewers at the time. The series hasn’t dropped below that number since.
With 50 episodes in the can, “GoT” averages 6.6 million per episode, though that may underestimate the show’s total impact. TheWrap averaged each season and crunched those changes to show the steady growth. (Season-over-season increases are in parentheses.)
Season 1: 3.330 million total viewers
Season 2: 4.898 million (+47.1 percent)
Season 3: 6.442 million (+31.5 percent)
Season 4: 8.978 million (+39.4 percent)
Season 5: 9.513 million (+6 percent)
As one can see, Season 2 had the biggest growth versus its predecessor, but the smaller starting point helps. Season 4 saw a large jump itself, and Season 5 may end up being a plateau point. We’ll see how Season 6 did in a few months, but expect Sunday’s premiere to reset all the records.
Check out how every single episode faired per Nielsen’s Live + 7 Day metric at the bottom of this post, all listed in total viewers.
HBO looks at its key drama’s viewership a little differently. Here’s how the pay-TV channel wants us to report “Game of Thrones” ratings:
Season 1: 9.3 million total viewers
Season 2: 11.6 million
Season 3: 14.4 million
Season 4: 19.1 million
Season 5: 20.2 million
Why the massive discrepancies? HBO is going by what it calls “gross audience,” counting all access points that go through a subscription — so, linear, DVR, HBO On Demand, HBO Go and HBO Now. Plus, the Time Warner premium cable network carries out those measurements to about a full month after a season ends.
Counting that way more than doubles each season’s reach.
Here’s the actual Nielsen count for each episode of every season, including that extra week of delayed viewing. The seasons are broken up with other “Game of Thrones” links worth checking out.
Episode Number & Title/Total Viewers (in 000)
01 WINTER IS COMING: 2,784 *(Series premiere, all-time audience low)
02 THE KINGSROAD: 2,836
03 LORD SNOW: 3,282
04 CRIPPLES, BASTARD, AND BROKEN THINGS: 3,269
05 THE WOLF AND THE LION: 3,424
06 A GOLDEN CROWN: 3,358
07 YOU WIN OR YOU DIE: 3,382
08 THE POINTY END: 3,547
09 BAELOR: 3,603
10 FIRE AND BLOOD: 3,812
11 THE NORTH REMEMBERS: 4,621
12 THE NIGHT LANDS: 4,819
13 WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE: 4,740
14 GARDEN OF BONES: 4,737
15 THE GHOST OF HARRENHAL: 4,943
16 THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW: 4,831
17 A MAN WITHOUT HONOR: 4,793
18 THE PRINCE OF WINTERFELL: 5,020
19 BLACKWATER: 5,049
20 VALAR MORGHULIS: 5,427
21 VALAR DOHAERIS: 5,719
22 DARK WINGS, DARK WORDS: 5,560
23 WALK OF PUNISHMENT: 6,116
24 AND NOW HIS WATCH IS ENDED: 6,525
25 KISSED BY FIRE: 6,939
26 THE CLIMB: 6,739
27 THE BEAR AND THE MAIDEN FAIR: 6,601
28 SECOND SONS: 6,571
29 THE RAINS OF CASTAMERE: 6,722 **(“Red Wedding” episode)
30 MHYSA: 6,925
31 TWO SWORDS: 8,305
32 THE LION AND THE ROSE: 8,390
33 BREAKER OF CHAINS: 8,745
34 OATHKEEPER: 9,015
35 FIRST OF HIS NAME: 9,189
36 THE LAWS OF GODS AND MEN: 8,634
37 MOCKINGBIRD: 9,470
38 THE MOUNTAIN AND THE VIPER: 9,501
39 THE WATCHERS ON THE WALL: 9,144
40 THE CHILDREN: 9,390
41 THE WARS TO COME: 10,461 ***(Series high)
42 THE HOUSE OF BLACK AND WHITE: 9,152
43 HIGH SPARROW: 9,135
44 SONS OF THE HARPY: 9,086
45 KILL THE BOY: 9,348
46 UNBOWED, UNBENT, UNBROKEN: 8,791
47 THE GIFT: 8,868
48 HARDHOME: 9,943
49 THE DANCE OF DRAGONS: 9,922
50 MOTHER’S MERCY: 10,426 ****(Jon Snow death)
Season 6 — Episode 51 — premieres tonight at 9/8c on HBO.