The fifth season premiere of Game of Thrones may not have turned out so well for Mance Rayder, (Sorry, the 24-hour moratorium on spoilers is over.), but it delivered for premium cable giant HBO in a major way.
Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 1 was the most-watched first-run episode in the series’ history with over 8 million viewers. That’s up 17 percent (over 1 million viewers) from the season 4 premiere.
The show became the most-watched series in HBO history last year when the episode entitled Mockingbird (the one that ends with Littlefinger’s very messy divorce from Lysa Arryn) brought in 18 million "gross viewers."
That figure includes HBO Go, On Demand and "encore presentation" viewers.
Only time will tell if the most recent episode will be able to beat that record before that week is out, but between its considerable head start and the recent launch of HBO Now, we’re thinking there will soon be a new King in the North.
Believe it or not, however, GoT still does not hold the title for most-watched first-run episode.
That honor belongs to the series finale of The Sopranos, which raked in 11.9 million viewers back in 2007.
Of course, that was a heavily-hyped event, and Thrones comes within shouting distance of that figure with regular, mid-season episodes.
You can expect the eventual series finale of GoT to finally to decisively whack Tony and company. Existentially-bummed mobsters just can’t compete with freakin’ dragons.
Watch Game of Thrones online if you’re still not caught up. (Oh, and if that’s the case, we apologize for the spoiler.)