The Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon returned to HBO and its online streaming service HBO Max had 7.8 million viewers. However, the Season 2 premiere received about 22% less viewership than Season 1 premiere, reasons for which have been partially attributed to a drop in linear viewership.
As per Nielsen, about 1 million fewer viewers tuned into HBO on Sunday night for the Season 2 premiere. Other reasons for less viewership could be, if not limited to, the presence of more competition from other streaming platforms and viewership numbers that are low at season premiere but grow over the course of the season.
According to Warner Bros. Discovery, the release of Season 2 has been great for HBO Max, where House of the Dragon had the biggest Season 2 premiere across any of the company’s shows in Europe, although this could also be a direct result of HBO Max getting launched in Europe in May this year.
In Latin America, where HBO Max was launched before the premiere of Season 1 of House of the Dragon, the premiere of the second season received 30% more viewership as compared to its predecessor.
The anticipation of the audience for the Season 2 release has been evident from the observation reported by Warner Bros. Discovery which stated that during the week leading up to Season 2, HBO Max reported the strongest engagement for Season 1 over a 19 month period, with a total of 1 million viewers.
Additionally, while the initial viewership numbers are not what HBO hoped for, the results could improve as it is possible that the show’s audience is catching up with Season 1, and hence the viewership numbers could go up in the coming weeks. For example, the series premiere of The Last of Us received 4.7 million viewers, but grew to 8.2 million viewers by the time the show reached its finale. Similarly, the debut of True Detective: Night Country, the fourth installment of the anthology series received slightly over 2 million views but grew to 3.2 million views by the time the show reached its season finale.