House of the Dragon launched to an absurdly large audience. (Vhagar is the biggest dragon on the show, as if you didn’t know. Don’t pretend you didn’t.)
How huge was it’s debut week? Nielsen ratings clock streaming minutes from Monday through Sunday at midnight, and the Game of Thrones prequel almost cracked the top ten when it debuted late night on a Sunday. It achieved in 3 hours what all the other shows managed in 7 full days. It earned 327 million minutes in that tiny window. HBO Max is probably pretty happy about that. When numbers for its first full week drop, it’ll very likely be in the tippy top spot.
For now, the last week without House of the Dragon in the mix saw Sandman taking top honors with 946 million viewing minutes. Stranger Things hung on in the second spot with 919 million, and dramedy Never Have I Ever hit third place with 883 million. Netflix continues to dominate streaming, with only Prime Video’s A League Of Their Own and Hulu’s Only Murders In The Building cracking the top ten as non-Netflix properties.
TV is a slightly different story, where Netflix still takes the top honors with reruns of NCIS and Grey’s Anatomy.
In anticipating House of the Dragon dominance, it’ll also be interesting to see where The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power lands when its numbers get released in a few weeks. For now, Targaryen fans can celebrate by watching Matt Smith non-awkwardly do the weather report.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)