Game of Thrones season six ratings overview 

Another Tuesday is here, but the season is over, alas. This means there are no fresh overnight ratings of a new episode – still, we can take a look at the viewership numbers of season six as a whole. First of all, here is the overview graph for the first six seasons of 

What are the most salient features readable from the graph? Well, for one, you will notice the Memorial Day weekend dip, also visible in the previous couple of seasons. What absolutely stands out is the huge number of people that tuned in on the night of the season finale – 8.89 million. That is more than I expected, to be honest; it represents an improvement over the previous season’s record finale of just under 10 %.

The overnight average last year was 6.88 million, this year is rose to 7.69 million. Such high overnight numbers are indicative of an increase in total viewership as well, and sure enough, the preliminary report on consolidated numbers has revealed that 23 million people saw each episode of 

season six, on average – a number that is likely to rise once the viewers of the last few episodes are included in the tally.

What are your predictions for the last two seasons of the show? I used to expect that the number of viewers was going to plateau at one point sooner or later, but I’m not all that sure about that anymore. Let us know in the comments.

Have you already read all the books and/or don\'t care about spoilers? You can reveal/hide all the spoilers in the comments with the click of the buttons below.

Place the spoiler remarks inside this short code:

Remove the extra spaces between the word spoiler and the brackets, and the front slash and brackets before publishing your comment.

I figure that next year we’ll have a similar curve on the graph (although not as wide) but shifted 0.5-1 million upwards. And in the final season 10 million will be broken repeatedly.

I love how GoT has now destroyed True Blood. In the beginning there was worry that ‘Thrones could never top a pulpy crowdpleaser like TB with the masses, yet here we are! It’s a freakin’ sensation… THE sensation really.

S7 premiere could hit 9 million, with over 10 million by the season finale.

I guess the show will end with about 12 – 13 million for the series finale.

Bravo GoT! Best show ever. I would love to know how many non-Americans watch the show, including those who pirate it. These total numbers would be astronomical!

This isn’t really related to this post but I just want to voice out some doubts/questions I’ve been chewing on:

1. Remember Season 1 when Cersei told Catelyn about a black-haired boy she had who died? That was not from the books and was meant to show Cersei’s maternal side and hint about the “golden crowns”. But the prophecy given to Cersei said the king would have 20 children while she would have 3. What about the black-haired boy? Discrepancy!

2. Varys was feeding the small council in Season 1 information about Dany (which Jorah provided). If he was really trying to help Dany all this while, isn’t that counter-intuitive? Also, when Robert insisted on killing Dany, wasn’t it Varys who arranged for the assassin? We know how Dany reacted when she found out Jorah was spying on her, then isn’t Varys gonna be in deep cow dung when she finds what he did? (although there seems to be no one left alive to tell on him since everyone part of Robert’s small council is dead)

3. I think Arya is going to kill Sansa. I don’t know how but I remember Ned telling Arya after he saw her with Needle, “Just don’t stab your sister with it”. Foreshadowing much?

If you’d project the viewership numbers of the first four seasons, the sixth season should have averaged around 10 million viewers, so the rise has definitely slowed down somewhat. Still, the trend is still positive, and as Johan says, breaking the 10 million mark seems possible. At a push, maybe even already for the final episode next year?

Btw, I seem to remember that in the early days you also plotted data for The Sopranos and (maybe) The Wire? Even if numbers can’t be compared directly since HBO membership numbers have changed too much, it’d still be interesting to see how they trended from their first to the final episodes. Any chance you could add them?

the most interesting thing about this graph.. the blue line keeps going UP.. at this point the red and green lines were already going down hill ..and making it clear there are only x number of episodes left means that they arent going to lose viewers by dragging it out way after they have run out of ideas like most other other shows do

Like most shows I had been expecting GoT to plateau as well, or even drop slightly like the other two in the graph. However, the expectations have changed for me now though, especially after those last two episodes. I’m thinking it will continue with similar incremental steps up through the series finale. They have a specific story they’re telling and a definitive end on the horizon, and one which promises to be filled with amazing events like those that are fresh on our minds. This Spring I’ve had more people I know tell me they have to start watching it than I ever have. So many other shows grow stale, boring and there’s less conversation about them as they try to stretch out the story, provide nothing new and end up being very cyclical. True Blood ended up that way for me. … and major fans ignore, but TWD is the definition of that.

Exactly! I feel the same about True Blood, TWD and Grey’s Anatomy. GoT’s ratings will undoubtedly keep going up.

The same way Aerys Targaryan had 3 children and no one says he had 7. Because only those who lived count.

If anything this makes the prophecy stronger, by saying Cercei would not have children with Robert even if they tried.

Yes and Varys also set information to Jorah to warn him about those assassins and save Dany. He sent them to not let Robert question his loyalty but he also sent information to save her life.

Tyrion says so in S5: ”Varys is probaly the biggest reason you are still alive”.

I wonder if the series finale of GoT initial airing will top the series finale of Breaking Bad. That hit 13 million or something like that (granted, it was AMC, not HBO).

You can start a thread in the WOTW forums, if you like. They aren’t as heavily used as the regular comment section, but there’s some good discussions happening there. But since you posted your questions here, I’ll respond here.

1. Yes, there’s a discrepancy because, as you say, the black-haired child was introduced as a way to foreshadow the revelation that Cersei’s other three children were Jaime’s, not Roberts, and to generate some humanity for Cersei (the black-haired child was real, it seems – Cersei mentions him to Robert during their conversation in “The Wolf and the Lion” and Robert seems to know what she’s talking about). And of course, back in Season 1, the writers didn’t know if they would ever include the prophecy (they were adverse to flashbacks back then). When the time came to introduce it, they probably didn’t want to mess up the poetic significance of the original wording “gold their crowns, and gold their shrouds” by adding in the fourth black-haired child.

I’ve always reconciled it this way: back in medieval times, infant mortality was

high, to the point most parents didn’t even bother naming the child until he or she was old enough that it became clear they would survive. Cersei’s black-haired child with Robert lived only a few days at the maximum, while all three of her golden-haired children with Jaime survived that dangerous period. By that standard, it’s not a stretch to say that Cersei only had three children. Cersei herself tells Catelyn that after the black-haired child died, she never visited his crypt, and almost never spoke of him again.

Prophecy doesn’t need to be perfect in order to be significant (indeed, they get misinterpreted are prove wrong all the time, even though this one mostly came true).

2. Dany already knows that Varys was feeding the Small Council information about her. Tyrion mentions Varys during their discussion in “Hardhome”, and Dany challenges him on the Spider overseeing “the campaign to find and kill me.” Tyrion defends Varys, claiming that he was doing what he needed to survive, and that he did other things as well to keep her safe – things that he did not have to do. Dany nods, and seems to accept this explanation. There will be no issue between her and Varys, especially now that he has brought Dorne and the Tyrells to her cause.

3. God, I hope that doesn’t happen. That would be one of the most tragic things ever to happen in this story. I think it’s just a throwaway line – at least, I hope it is. Arya and Sansa fought a lot, as children do, but they do love each other, and after everything they’ve been through, I would hope that they value their familial bond more than ever.

The furious pace GoT is at currently, will ensure that next season viewership continues to go up, especially for the season premiere and finale. Viewers are curious, extremely curious, about what is going to happen next. And next.

I lend out my first season blue ray all the time to get people hooked on this. I would like to take some credit for those positive trends 😉

What I find interesting in those graphs is that True Blood didn’t really take a dive on Memorial Day weekend (unless of course it doesn’t air on weekends, in which case just ignore the comment).

ha ha, at least in a country we both know well I think you can easily add half a million viewers.

Hahaha certainly! And more than that, I think 😀

Errr…. You’ll be quite disappointed since there’s a lot of chatting on social media all over the world, but that doesn’t mean high viewership… As Italian i can tell you that we barely reach half million viewers on pay TV, out of slightly less 5 million subscribers… I recently heard that the show is a big flop on OTA,free for all channel (yes, we have 2 differenti channel that air GoT).

Another case that i know of is Britain, where viewership was barely over 1 million during the first 2 or 3 seasons.. . Source for this is Emilia Clarke nontheless, some old interview…. Surely piracy is really huge here, especially in my country

Omg guys I just thought of something- when the white walkers finally make it past the wall what happens in the crypts in winterfell? Jon had that dream in the books where the old kings of the north rose from their graves- won’t that be terrifying when it happens! Can you imagine!

Was True Blood really critically acclaimed? LOL It was campy fun, but it sure didn’t win any awards.

There is not enough data to make a graph, I tried once with The Sopranos and Rome, but there are no episode-to-episode numbers. The total viewership of The Sopranos has been bested by GoT already, but the series finale first airing was seen by 11.90 million people. Something to aim at? 🙂

I can’t speak for early seasons but viewing figures for the UK were 2.2 million for the season 6 premiere and around 2 million for the finale, with that figure expected to double with catch up and on demand. That’s very high for a premium rate channel here.

Sophie Turner and Aidan Gillen on the Game of Thrones Season 6 Finale ( 494 )

Give us your thoughts following “The Winds of Winter" ( 144 )

Isaac Hempstead Wright and Robert Aramayo discuss the Tower of Joy and Game of Thrones\' endgame ( 122 )

Brian Cox discusses turning down Game of Thrones

Lisa on Win a Varys figure from Dark Horse!

aiad on Brian Cox discusses turning down Game of Thrones

Hear Marko Roar on Game of Thrones season six ratings overview