Het is geen verassing te noemen dat de eerste aflevering van Game of Thrones seizoen 7 alle records van de serie en HBO breekt. Want deze show is wereldwijd zwaar populair bij legale en illegale kijkers. In de US had de openings aflevering maar liefst 16.1 miljoen kijkers en als je dit denk ik globaal neemt, is het drie tot vier keer hoger. Maar goed meer over deze cijfers kan je hier vinden, en uit dat artikel kan je hier onder alvast een stukje lezen.

Turns out HBO's programming gamble paid off big time. Their flagship series Game of Thrones returned to screens last night after the longest hiatus in the show's history, leaving behind its tradition Spring return, when TV viewership is generally at its peak, in favor of a summer premiere. But if summer is the slow season, that just means there's nothing standing in the way of the goliath series and its rabid fanbase, and it seems the long wait only made fans even hungrier for the winds of winter, because Game of Thrones returned to series-high ratings for a first-run telecast with an average 10.1 million viewers. And that's not even the full scope of it. Adding in the DVR viewership from initial streaming reports, the premiere tally grows to 16.1 million viewers.

That is insane. Even by Game of Thrones standards. It's a 50% increase from last year's Season 6 premiere, still an impressive 27% boost if you only count the linear viewership, and easily breaks the record to become HBO's most watched premiere from any series to date. Both Season 5 and Season 6 drew in roughly 8 million viewers, and prior to Sunday's episode, last year's finale was the most-watched live-plus-same day telecast with a total 8.9 million viewers.