‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 Premiere Ratings: How Did the Episode Stack Up?

Meredith Jacobs April 15, 2019, 1:15 pm

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Winter is here and ready to conquer Sunday nights.

The Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere, “Winterfell,” aired April 14 on HBO, and both fans and critics loved it.

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It received a score of 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes‘ Tomatometer, which measures the percentage of Approved Tomatometer Critics who have given it a positive review. It also received an average rating of 7.62 out of 10.

Fans who expected Sunday’s episode to be the most-watched premiere of the drama were correct. HBO announced Monday that a record 17.4 million viewers tuned in across the network’s platforms (linear, HBOGO, and HBO NOW). Of those viewers, 11.8 million watched the 9:00 p.m. airing.

(HBO)

It was a popular topic on social media as well. According to Headline Planet, the series and its characters sat atop the trending topics on Twitter following the premiere Sunday night. At 1:15 am ET, #GameofThrones, Bran, Sansa, Arya, Daenerys, #FortheThrone, Jaime, Dany, and Cersei were the top nine.

It was also the most-tweeted about episode of Game of Thrones ever. There were more than five million tweets, and over the weekend, there were 11 million mentions.

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When the HBO series premiered in 2011, 2.2 million viewers tuned in. That number has been steadily growing with each season premiere, with nearly 8 million tuning in for the first episodes of both Seasons 5 and 6.

The Season 7 premiere set a record with 10.1 million watching it live and 6 million more catching the episode on DVRs or streaming platforms.

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Airing opposite the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere, a new episode of NCIS: Los Angeles and reruns of Family Guy and Charmed didn’t stand a chance. Each of those shows were down in viewers from previous airings.

Though 7.5 million viewers tuned in for NCIS: LA on March 31, even with a delayed start, that number was down (to 6.76 million) for the latest episode.