House of the Dragon‘s ratings are on fire.
On Monday, HBO announced that the Game of Thrones spinoff’s premiere reached nearly 10 million viewers across linear and HBO Max platforms in the U.S. during its debut on Sunday, Aug. 21. With the ratings, the show became the largest original series premiere audience in HBO history.
The premiere also marked the largest series launch on HBO Max across the U.S., LatAm and EMEA, according to the company. HBO noted that Sunday night viewership for an HBO series would represent just 20-40% of the show’s total gross audience.
“It was wonderful to see millions of Game of Thrones fans return with us to Westeros last night. House of the Dragon features an incredibly talented cast and crew who poured their heart and soul into the production, and we’re ecstatic with viewers’ positive response,” Casey Bloys, CCO at HBO and HBO Max, said in a statement.
So many viewers tuned in that the platform crashed on thousands of Fire TV devices. Though Warner Bros. Discovery told Adweek in a statement that millions more were able to access the series without any issue.
The series also brought more viewership to Game of Thrones, which HBO Max launched in 4K in support of the new spinoff. HBO reports the series just wrapped its strongest week on HBO Max to date and has a seven-week stretch of continuous week-over-week growth, with the series weekly viewing numbers in August being around 90% above viewing in June.
“We look at these key leading indicators like trailer views, social conversation and search volume, amongst others, and it’s the strongest we’ve seen for the series in the history of HBO Max, and so we’re pretty excited,” Pia Barlow, HBO Max’s evp of originals marketing, told Adweek recently while talking about House of the Dragon’s marketing campaign and its effect on Game of Thrones viewership.