‘Game of Thrones’ Battle of Winterfell Ratings: How Many People Tuned In?
Those fighting for Winterfell sought to crush the Night King and his Army of the Dead, but did the episode do the same to the competition Sunday night?
The big battle aired in Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3, which featured several big moments and character deaths, but did it live up to the hype? How many tuned in to watch like Jon (Kit Harington) and Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) did when they watched the beginning of the battle from a distance?
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On Rotten Tomatoes‘ Tomatometer, the episode received a score of 81%, which is down from the 92% rating for the premiere and 88% score for the second episode. That meter measures the percentage of Approved Tomatometer Critics who have given the episode a positive review. “The Long Night” also received an average rating of 8.96 out of 10.
While 11.8 million viewers watched the initial airing of the Season 8 premiere on April 14, that number did fall a bit for its second episode, with 10.29 million watching at 9/8c on April 21. The number total viewers when factoring in HBO GO and HBO NOW also fell, with 15.9 million tuning in for Episode 2 as opposed to the premiere’s 17.4 million.
(Helen Sloan/HBO)
How did the Battle of Winterfell episode do in comparison? It was the most-watched episode of the season thus far and the second most-watched of the series (behind the Season 7 finale), with 12.02 million tuning in for the first showing on HBO. Factoring in streaming on HBO GO and HBO NOW, 17.8 million viewers tuned in, making it the most watched episode to date.
The TV shows airing opposite it, including American Idol, World of Dance, Family Guy, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Good Girls, do show an increase in viewers in those time slots from the previous week.
Game of Thrones was a hot topic across social media Sunday night. The series and terms related to it, including misspelling of its title and Arya’s name, held the top 19 worldwide trending topics, according to Headline Planet.
The trending topics were: #GameofThrones, Arya, Battle Of Winterfell, #GamefThrones, Bran, Cersei, Theon, Night King, #GOTS8E3, Battle For Winterfell, Lyanna, Lady Mormont, Ghost, Melisandre, Jorah, Dothraki, God Of Death, Drogon, and Aria.
There were almost 2 million tweets about Arya alone, according to Huff Post.
In total, Variety reported there were more than 7.8 million tweets about the episode, making it “the most tweeted-about television episode of all time.”
Stay tuned for the official ratings for Season 8 Episode 3 from HBO.
Game of Thrones, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO
