HBO’s “Succession” is picking up some ratings momentum that would make the Murdochs blush.
The media-empire drama’s second season, created and showrun by Jesse Armstrong, concluded with an episode that posted 1.11 million viewers across multiple HBO platforms on Sunday, according to the pay TV channel. That’s 12% better than Season 1’s finale (997,000 on Aug. 5, 2018) and up slightly from the prior week’s episode, which put up 1.08 million.
The overall-eyeballs tally, which counts the initial 9 p.m. airing on HBO, as well as streams on HBO Go and HBO Now, is down a bit from the series record the show hit with its Season 2 premiere on Aug. 11, which drew 1.2 million multiplatform viewers.
We should note here the first episode of the second season benefited from an instant replay at 10 p.m. and a third airing immediately following “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” which helped boost the linear numbers that night compared to the Season 2 finale, which didn’t get its first replay until after 12 a.m. ET on Monday.
But digital viewing for the “Succession” Season 2 finale, titled “This Is Not for Tears,” actually reached a series high, and was +53% from the show’s Season 2 premiere night. This finale was +152% in digital viewing from the first season’s.
Later, the series finale for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s “Ballers” drew 721,000 viewers across HBO’s numerous platforms, counting its 11 p.m. airing on HBO, as well as streams on HBO Go and HBO Now.
While that number is +7% from the previous week’s episode (672,000 viewers), it’s down from the fifth and final season premiere, which grabbed 910,000 multiplatform viewers on Aug. 25 (including the linear debut, digital streams, plus two replays on HBO) and last year’s Season 4 finale, which got 950,000 on Oct. 7, 2018.
According to HBO, Season 2 of “Succession” is averaging 4 million viewers to-date across all the channels platforms, with total viewing for the season expected to surpass last year’s final count of 4.3 million viewers.
You can head over here to read our interview with star Brian Cox about the finale’s “blood sacrifice,” and what it means for Logan Roy (Cox) and his children in Season 3.