ratings

Game of Thrones’ Season Finale Is on Track to Be Its Most-Watched Episode Ever

Boom! Photo: HBO

The Sept of Baelor wasn’t the only thing that went kablooey this weekend. Sunday’s explosive season-six Game of Thrones finale drew at least 8.9 million linear viewers, putting it on track to be the most-watched episode yet of the HBO series. Per Nielsen, the nearly nine million viewers who caught the 75-minute epic the night it aired is already a same-day record for the show, surpassing the 8.1 million tallied by last June’s season five cliffhanger. In this era of modern measurement, however, HBO also tracks how its shows perform once a week’s worth of DVR replays are tallied (the so-called live plus seven ratings) and how many people end up watching once various video-on-demand and digital platforms are tallied. Using the latter metric, it’s likely the audience of Sunday’s episode will end up surpassing the 20-million mark. Winter may be here, but the ratings for Game of Thrones have never been hotter.

GOT Finale on Track to Be the Most-Watched Ever