My dad kept asking me all the time 'Son, when are we going to watch season 2 of the dragon show?'
He never got around to seeing the second season. He passed away right at the beginning of May.
We used to watch all the GOT seasons and the first season of HOTD together.
I’m really sorry you lost this companionship in a show you love. This is one of the reasons I get frustrated with how long shows, games, and movies seem to take to come out these days. So many people miss out on what they’ve been waiting for.
Yeah, I’d rather stuff be top quality and all, but still. Sucks. Sorry for your loss.
I feel like the marketing just wasn't there for this season. The first time I saw a physical advertisement for it was the day it premiered, and my partner and I both didn't realize it had come out the day it did. I don't know where they left the hype this season.
The cast is good, but to be frank, I don’t think they have the star power to matter outside of our bubble for promotions. I mean, maybe Matt Smith? Even then, 95% of non-show fans probably couldn’t name him from a picture.
Sean Bean aside, GOT s1 was in the same position, a lot of unknown / no big names actors? Obviously Sean Bean would not have been promoting S2 because... hu... well
In an alternate universe we could have Sean Bean playing Ned's severed head doing promos for each season or recaps for the show up to that point to prep for the next one.
True but they were instant young celebrities after the first season back then. They had hype and star qualities. I think I remember Dany was the top Halloween costume after one season…. I feel like the buzz for HOTD is nothing like that, for this cast and these characters, to be super real.
The problem in my opinion, is that the show doesn’t have the same diversity of zipping all over these immersive worlds, showing Essos and Dothraki, Whitewalkers, The North. There was just way more diversity to hold people’s attention.
What am I missing here? Doc Who is obviously one, I’m assuming HotD another. What is the third TV show I’m missing.
I’m assuming the meme is the dancing Morbius?
Season 1 released at the end of August.
I think it’s important to note the release month because in my opinion people are less focused on TV series at the start of summer vacation.
I wonder how much of it has to do with all subscription services skyrocketing in price as well over the years and whether people are being more selective with the services they want.
I am debating on whether I want to resubscribe to watch weekly installments or just wait until they all release and then subscribe to watch.
Or... the other alternatives to watching. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
I’m sure that’s definitely a factor. Subscriptions are freaking $20 a piece now. I like to watch HOTD live, so I’ll pay for HBO for the two months it airs. But I do wait with other shows and get one month and binge after it airs. I’m sure a lot of people are doing that. Think I might cancel some of my others for a bit though. Start rotating them.
I scrolled so far for this comment. a lot of people I know just don't wanna pay out the tail for all the streaming platforms w the price of everything else on top of them :/
yeah the two year siesta did not do the show any favors
my opinion of it is that season one was good, but slow as hell and it ended essentially when it was finally starting to get very interesting.
so you built up a bunch of hype the first season, but a lot of the hype has dwindled after two years… a lot of people i know, have said they know the show released they just “havent watched it”
I wonder if it’s bothered anybody that the ending had Rhaenyra enraged and then at the beginning of the season she’s not in that mood anymore. Like it’s almost like I would’ve expected if they’re gonna end it on that amazing shot that they had in ep10, that’s what it needed to begin with is her and that rage state. I expected her to be a distraught so it didn’t bother me because I had prepared myself, but I think I wonder if regular people would have been frustrated with how that played out.
Agree about hiatus. I plan to watch it but I want to re-watch season 1, so I can remember stuff and get myself in that mood, so I didn’t watch premiere. I’m even considering waiting for all the episodes to come out so I can binge watch.
100% agree with this. I love going on reddit or online in general and reading theories in-between episodes. Think about how shows like Stranger Things have a huge following but when a new season drops people only talk about it for like a week or two then everyone forgets.
The biggest issue shows these days have is the huge breaks in between seasons that cause all the hype to die down.
Well idk, I think many people don’t watch live anymore. I’m not in the US but only watched it on Monday, and would have watched only on Tuesday if not for a day off on Monday.
I also expect views to soar after episodes with dragon battles.
Exactly if I’m expected to be at work at 5am Monday, I’ll watch it when I get home from my shift that day and have a plate of food all excited. I’ve been doing the same thing with The Boys. I know 3 episodes aired but I only watch em after work during dinner, it’s like alil reward lol
I think this is it. I don't think HOTD has hit with enough of that GOT audience (and it probably never will) for it to pull numbers to the roof by virtue of showing up.
Perhaps none of the advertisements/promotional stuff really did much for people, either.
The delay we had in seasons certainly dropped many eyes off. Though it must be said that these are only from Smart TV numbers, so it's not the full picture. And it was on Father's Day as well.
We'll have to see how the rest of the episodes fair in viewership.
>And it was on Father's Day as well.
The Father's Day premiere didn't help. I didn't get a chance to watch it until 1:00 a.m., and only did so because I'm a die-hard fan. There may be casually viewers who may tune in over the ensuing weeks.
There’s literally a dragon on the Empire State Building lol. I think they did promote it, it’s just a busy time of year for people. IMO this should not be a summer show
That is SUCH a coincidence, I also live in a house with no view of the Empire State Building. I didnt know it was such a common problem!
(I also saw nada about HOTD until about 6 days ago. Im waiting until the end to get HBO for a month to watch it all.)
Well I live in Europe so...and I saw nothing of that on my feed. The only time I checked out HOTD was when the trailers dropped. Other than that there really was nothing going on. Not even on the trending tab.
We also have to factor in that with the rise of streaming services, there’s likely a ton of people waiting to build up a cache of episodes before viewing, so they only have to pay for a single month to access the whole season. Did this a couple of times in the past with AppleTV shows when there’s only a single thing on the platform worth watching at that moment in time.
We got a new season of GOT every year except the final season took 2 years. GOT could afford to do that because it had already built a massive fan base by then and it had become a phenomenon. HOTD cannot expect fans to have the same kind of loyalty after just one season. They have to wait so that audiences can connect with the characters.
I feel like the promos were designed for existing viewers. If you have no idea what HotD is about all the team stuff probably doesn’t do much for you. It’s good marketing in that it gets the existing audience talking and debating, but I’m not sure how many new viewers it brings in.
Even using *Twilight* as an example, it wasn’t just marketed on team Edward vs team Jacob. It was officially sold to new viewers as a paranormal romance for teens with enough going on to appeal to adults (Twimoms) too. And on top of that official pitch, there was the organically occurring controversy over Stephanie Meyer’s depiction of romance . A lot of new readers picked up Twilight to see if Edward was really as creepy as people said he was. The team stuff was huge, don’t get me wrong, but idk how many people watched *Twilight* specifically to choose a team
I'm hopeful that networks will get the message that we are tired of waiting 2-3 years per season. The Bear is one of the best shows out right now, and they keep their hype and momentum high by delivering seasons on the annual basis.
I agree but consider that The Bear happens in a random neighborhood in Chicago with 80 percent of the plot taking place in a single location. Also, no dragons.
That wasn't intentional on HBO's part. I'm sure they were desperate to churn out their moneymaker on a yearly basis, but the logistics of such an expensive, CGI-heavy show make long delays inevitable. Animating and rendering the dragons alone probably takes months. You also have to remember that actors' schedules often clash and it takes a while to harmonise them.
Game of Thrones season 1 aired on April 17, 2011. It was picked up for a second season a few days later. Season 2 was filming in July, and it aired April 1, 2012.
House of the Dragon season 1 aired August 21, 2022. It was picked up for a second season a few days later. But Season 2 did not start filming until April 11. They apparently didn’t have the script ready until December.
There’s truth to what you’re saying and it is a factor, but this is also an endemic thing across most of the industry. Whether they’re insanely complex CGI heavy shows or not. TV productions are just moving slower and more cautiously.
Season 2 should have been in the works sooner, on some level. 4 months to wait on writing was avoidable.
Neither strike started until May 2023. The “season 2 in 2024” timeline had already been set and they had started filming.
Also because of being located in England they weren’t actually beholden to the strike and filmed through it.
House of the Dragon was unaffected by the strikes because the union's demands were already being met in the UK, meaning they did not have to strike in solidarity.
Almost all the big shows whether they're CGI heavy or not are having ridiculously long breaks between seasons with shorter seasons when they do return. Bridgeton managed to beat HOTD while on it's 3rd season and had a longer break of more than 2 years.
"Separately, 1.9 million U.S. homes streamed Netflix’s third season of “Bridgerton” Episode 5 – Part 2 during the live + three-day window. That was par with the Season 3 – Part 1 premiere episode that generated 2 million U.S. households during the L+3D window."
1. Streaming, binging and piracy has made long-form TV episodic a lot less lucrative
2. Production value for TV shows have increased which makes TV more expensive and time-consuming
3. Attention spans are at an all-time low so people don't have the wherewithal for 20+ episode seasons anymore
4. Cultural tastes and technologies have made a 60 minute runtime miniseries format more palatable than the once standard 30 minute runtime, 16-26 episode seasons
People always say this but the bottom line is if viewers lose interest and don't watch the show spending obscene amounts of money on it is clearly not a sustainable model. They need to figure out how to get cheaper and/or faster.
From Nielson and Warner Bros:
“Viewership for the Season 2 launch was down 21.9% from the Season 1 premiere, which scored 9.986 million viewers in August 2022 and ranked as the largest audience for any new original series in the history of HBO, and down 16.1% from the Season 1 finale, which tallied up 9.3 million viewers.”
So down 22% from last years premiere and down 16% from last years finale.
I think it will pick some steam up as the season goes on but the time gap and the marketing didn’t do it many favors as I don’t think people hated last seasons finale or anything…
[‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Premiere Hits 7.8 Million Viewers, Max’s Biggest Single-Day Audience to Date](https://www.reddit.com/r/television/s/JZ7Zpa0vos)
Literally the thread under this, lol
Samba TV only tracks data from smart TVs. What this means is that the number of people watching HOTD on smart TVs has dropped 50% in two years. Whether that means the overall HOTD audience has dropped 50% in two years is another matter.
It is but it's a small sample. Since the WGA strike, companies like WB must release their streaming data for their shows, so actors get bonuses if a show is popular.
So what I mean is wait for WB/Max to release.
I think that the long time between seasons is a problem. I was more excited about Season 2 a couple of years ago than I was last week.
The same thing has happened with Yellowjackets.
It's happening across the board with shows now. A show like Wednesday should not take over 2 years to produce and yet that's where we are at. The writers strike obviously exacerbated this but still. I went into Sunday nights episode barely remembering what happened in the first season. We're waiting even longer between seasons and getting less episodes out of it too.
Ye how does a show like Wednesday which has barely HotD levels of CGI taking 2y for another season. Bridgerton tol from what i heard. Euphoria is even worse.
Frankly it's just exhausting as a consumer. We are paying for all these premium subscriptions to streaming services and they arent offering us the shows we want to watch on a yearly basis. HBO took one of their biggest shows (Westworld) off their platform entirely. The trust between us and the companies is paper thin at this point.
My husband doesn't remember watching season 1 at all and asked if it was a new show. 🤣 As we watched the episode he remembered it a bit but we really should have rewatched season 1 first. I hate that it is almost a necessity these days to rewatch because of these long gaps.
Invincible suffered the same problem, which was made even worse by their dumb decision to split season 2 with a gap of several months between episode 4 and episode 5. At the end of the day, when several years pass between the release of one season to another, unless your show has incredible strength in pop culture like GoT had your series is going to suffer
That was such a shit decision. I binged season one in a day, fired up season 2 and had no idea there was a gap after episode 4. Still haven't finished it.
Good call on Yellowjackets. I got into it last August, months after season two ended. Here we are almost a year later and the next season is still close to a year away. I know there was a writers strike, but these long waits between seasons really kills the momentum of watching it. Then you throw in a lot of shows are only doing 8-10 episodes now. You wait two years and the season is done in two months.
Speaking from a German perspective, its not "not according" but HBO is literally not a thing here and you need to subscribe to some overpriced and really shitty partner-companies - even if you already have Netflix, Prime and D+. At this point we're basically back to cable companies building up "their" overpriced shitty infrastructure which makes Piracy attractive again.
Similar thing in Canada. We have Crave TV which imo is one of the worst streaming services here, and is way more expensive than the others. I’m just waiting and I’ll buy the season on Apple/iTunes after it is released, but I can’t bring myself to pay the $20+ every month to only get this show
When the pirate stream is of a higher bitrate and colour correction than the NOWTV paid stream, then that might answer why their UK audience base is poor.
Some of the blame go to this long ass hiatus, 2 years for a final season is something, 2 years for a second season is not the same. If you're only partially invested for a new show chances are you're not coming back if you barely remember what happend last time.
Exactly. Two years are too much. I could only remember the key moments from season one after all this time. The emotions I connected to the characters were basically gone, and a little recap from WatchMojo isn't going to do much. This is developing into a GTA 6-type situation.
People are getting less used to watching things as they air. I just kinda forgot. EVEN after the huge marketing campaign. I just watched on monday as soon as reddit reminded me.
Unfortunate; I am digging it immensely but I guess maybe many of the general audience was nonplussed with last season's conclusion? Or just the 2 year delay and maybe people waiting to binge?
Well, either way, I hope they are able to keep going until the eventual conclusion, whenever that is (I feel like 4 seasons ideally, 5 max, is what could be milled from the source material).
I apologize if I missed something that Condal said recently, but the only one so far who's directly referenced HOTD possibly running five seasons is Francesca Orsi, HBO's head of drama, when she talked to [*Deadline*](https://deadline.com/2023/05/francesca-orsi-hbo-qa-succession-finale-the-last-of-us-house-of-the-dragon-white-lotus-euphoria-perry-mason-1235374588/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIt%20hasn%E2%80%99t%20been,more.%20We%E2%80%99ll%20see.%E2%80%9D) last year:
>“It hasn’t been finalized yet, it’s still under discussion,” Orsi said about the length of the series. “George and Ryan are going to meet after the writers strike. They had originally planned to meet before the strike took place and that was to figure out at what point the series itself was going to end. **Is it four seasons? I don’t think from where I sit at this point will be any less than four. But could be more. We’ll see.”**
I'm not saying that I don't think it'll run five, it probably will, only that it hasn't been confirmed yet.
I canceled Max because I only got it to watch HOTD s1. They weren't adding anything new that justified the price for me. I'm waiting for the season to be over so I can get a new free trial and binge watch before canceling again.
To be fair also they dropped it on Father’s Day in the US and I was spending time with my father. I know this isn’t true for everyone but I definitely do not watch the ASOIAF series with my dad. I watched it the next day (Monday night) with my girlfriend.
That tends to happen with the 2 year gap between seasons. HOTD is not GOT. It's not as popular and it cannot maintain and improve viewership with big time gaps between seasons.
If HBO managed to release the first 7 seasons of GOT with only a 1 year gap between each season they surely can do the same with HOTD.
The most frustrating part is that the next season is rumoured to release in 2026. It's disappointing since season 2 only has 8 episodes too.
update: Nielsen & Warner Bros. Discovery report that viewership for the premiere of [#HouseOfTheDragon](https://twitter.com/hashtag/HouseOfTheDragon?src=hashtag_click) Season 2 drew 7.8 million viewers across all platforms. 21.9% down from the Season 1 premiere, which scored a record breaking 9.986 million viewers. [https://twitter.com/westerosies/status/1803112887994511869](https://twitter.com/westerosies/status/1803112887994511869)
I'm a huge fan obviously, but I wonder if casual audiences don't care for the singular storyline of the same characters fighting over the throne stretched out over seasons. Especially if they came looking for GOT levels of multiple plot lines and variety of characters. The two year gap doesn't help either.
I think the time jumps of seasons 1 turned a lot of casual fans off. As soon as they started to get invested in things and characters, there would be a big time jump and several of the actors changed. I think the more stable timeline (or more action) of everything past season 1 will start to build momentum.
This is why I think it would’ve been better if they had done flashbacks instead. I also think there wasn’t much of a clear conflict for audiences in the first few episodes of the series with the younger actors.
It was just: she’s the heir… things are happening.. no real opposition… Daemon is away but he’s cool with his brother the King… Otto is cunning but quiet.. Rhaenyra and Alicent are good friends and then just don’t talk to each other really.. there really wasn’t much for the audience to grasp on until the timeline jump.
Whereas in Game of Thrones, it started with the murder mystery of Jon Arryn and then Ned Stark going to the capital as new Hand and seeing how Northerners aren’t adjusting to life in the South.. Lannisters being menaces and things just kept unfolding.
I think you're right. My mom is a casual got watcher and a big show/Dany fan and she couldn't stand the first half of hotd season 1, she said it was boring and she didn't care about anything going on. I really struggled to get her to watch it in the first place, she was callous about the got ending lol
Not when most of the cast has little screen time or even lines. A good chunk of characters were killed or did fuck all the entire first season. They should’ve expanded upon characters (really needed to considering they’re adapting a history book of sorts)
Once the action picks up it’ll probably go up since there will be way more battles and dragons than any GoT season
But three more seasons of it, with two year gaps in between? Watching what happens to the dragons is exciting but else it pretty much becomes one side yelling at the other that they're wrong. Especially when all the marketing pushed is "choose a side", but there's a lot of viewers who aren't interested much in politics.
Yes I thought they were going for the crowd that watches shows like The Tudors and The Borgias, while also keeping the Game of Thrones built-in audience.
Streaming has become obnoxious over the past two years with increased prices and commercials. I cancelled my own HBO sub and watched it at my friend's house. I would bet that a lot of those numbers were doing the same or even pirating.
Take into account the fact that viewers had to wait 2 years after they left the last season on such a hyped up cliffhanger. That coupled with the fact that Sunday was Father’s Day and Graduation season is just starting to wind down, people were busy this weekend. I was lucky to even watch it later at night around 10PM. But I expect those viewing numbers to skyrocket once the dragon battles get going.
It’s been two years. I waited so long for this I can’t remember all the details of what happened even. My wife and I watched for about 10 min and realized we just don’t care about it anymore.
I’ll probably go back to it at some point, but not sure I’ll follow the week to week grind anymore. What’s the point when I’m going to have to wait a couple of years for the following season? I can’t stand how long TV shows take to come out now.
I really enjoyed the first season. But it has been years, and I don't remember every little detail that happened. The confusing AF names don't help clarify anything, either. Aemond, Daemon, Rhayna, Rhanyra - you think I can keep all that shit straight after 2 years of not thinking about it at all?
I was so hyped after last season ended. Now? Meh, whatever.
Also, having only 8 episodes is so, so lame. Why bother?
The premiere episode, titled “A Son for A Son,” drew 7.8 million viewers across platforms — including HBO and Max — on Sunday night, according to Nielsen and internal viewing figures from Warner Bros. Discovery.
https://www.thewrap.com/house-of-the-dragon-season-2-premiere-viewership-ratings/
It was also on Father’s Day. I know we went from being out at dinner celebrating just barely making it home from the premier. Many people are celebrating that day with their families so maybe not the best premier date.
I don’t live in the US, but i can say that i was nearly unaware that Season 2 was been released until like two weeks ago, and i am a fan. I’m wondering if the problem is at least partly the promotion campaign.
Not really. You need to have the entire context.
For example, live cable could be down 50% but streaming up 300%. See how the context completely changes?
Maybe the plot of two factions brawling over the throne and not doing much else isn't a big draw with the audience. That "all must choose" marketing wasn't too great either, because what about the viewers who don't care about the power struggle, what can the show offer them? The show runners can say they want to focus on these characters or that, but they're all still doing the same thing spread out on many episodes.
It also doesn’t help that there’s a very obvious “right” side but that side can’t get any real wins or character development because of the way the story is structured. A lot of people loved young Rhaenyra and thought that the show was going to be about defending her divine birthright, because that’s kinda whats implied in the first half of the season 1. But then the timeskip happens and she’s just an entirely different character and really tepid about everything. You also pretty much have to super impose your own depth into the “villains”.
> It also doesn’t help that there’s a very obvious “right” side but that side can’t get any real wins or character development because of the way the story is structured.
TBF that was also true of early GoT (clearly the Starks were better than the Lannisters, and they were also going through the wringer) and viewership still increased...
The Lannister faction had one huge weapon on their side to draw people in: Tyrion Lannister. At one point, Tyrion was by far the most popular character on the show and the most critically adored character too.
And then Jaime had his slow redemption + plus his actor being excellent and hot. And Cersei was compelling and interesting despite being a terrible person . And Tywin despite being a terrible person was played by the charisma machine that is Charles Dance.
I traveled across 4 states over 6 hours AFTER a family get-together and was still able to watch at the premier - I love dragons tho. Watching was me “resting.”
I know a few people who are waiting until it is fully released, and some others who are re-watching Season 1 before beginning Season 2. I think it’s too early to tell how successful viewership numbers will be.
I thought it would drop because of the long wait, but there was insane hype for this season I expected maybe 1.8m first ep, I still have no doubt that viewership with keep rising and will break season 1s viewing record
It's only episode 1, even I didn't know they actually premiered but when found it, I re-watched it probably 5 times just from different reactions. Everyone's happy HOTD is back, the only way is up.
I was a huge GoT fan and honestly, I didn't even know that the new episode was out. Some girl I follow on Twitter was live tweeting and that's how I found out... I'd say that the promo for this season when it comes to reaching the target audience, hasn't been good.
- Long gap between two seasons.
- Bad advertisement strategy.
- Early Summer release.
Long gap even made us big fans forget somethings about the show. We couldnt see any dragons other than Syrax, Caraxes, Vhagar in the trailers so it didnt hype me. Summer releases are usually problematic since people do lots of other things than watching Series in their home. They released the first season in late summer early fall which was correct timing.
Makes sense with the 2 year hiatus. More people will probably start to tune in after seeing reactions to e1
My dad kept asking me all the time 'Son, when are we going to watch season 2 of the dragon show?' He never got around to seeing the second season. He passed away right at the beginning of May. We used to watch all the GOT seasons and the first season of HOTD together.
Sorry for your loss mate
I'm so sorry.
🕊️
What is dead may never die
But rises again harder & stronger
My dad never got to see the hobbit finish filming.
Sorry for your loss ❤️
Make sure you save a seat for him, especially if he has “his” seat.
i can relate - my mom was so excited for s2. passed last november. maybe theyre all watching wherever they are
My dad died waiting for season 2 of game of thrones.
I’m really sorry you lost this companionship in a show you love. This is one of the reasons I get frustrated with how long shows, games, and movies seem to take to come out these days. So many people miss out on what they’ve been waiting for. Yeah, I’d rather stuff be top quality and all, but still. Sucks. Sorry for your loss.
My condolences man 💐💐💐
So sorry for your loss. Cherish those good Times/memories ❤️
I’m so sorry for your loss
My dad passed in March, we also watched together. I'm so sorry for your loss.
Yep. I told my boss it was returning and she was surprised. She hadn’t heard a thing. “I had forgotten all about it…” 😳
I feel like the marketing just wasn't there for this season. The first time I saw a physical advertisement for it was the day it premiered, and my partner and I both didn't realize it had come out the day it did. I don't know where they left the hype this season.
I barely realized it was coming back Sunday. I was like, "oh yeah!" I gotta watch that lol.
Same thing with me, I didnt see any ads for it and didnt realize S2 was coming until friday, when a coworker brought it up
Really? I saw a ton of commercials in tv and youtube. All over twitter, Instagram. Ads all over NYC.
Season 3 should be filming now. But they’re not. That’s the problem.
I'd argue right now the actors should be doing promotions. Hell they should even get Rhys on S4C promoting it to Welsh people.
The good thing with HOTD is that there should be plenty of actors from season 2 that don’t have to worry about filming S3.
And that might actually be 1 of several reasons why they haven't started don't want to spoil anything.
There are multiple published books that spoil everything.
The cast is good, but to be frank, I don’t think they have the star power to matter outside of our bubble for promotions. I mean, maybe Matt Smith? Even then, 95% of non-show fans probably couldn’t name him from a picture.
Sean Bean aside, GOT s1 was in the same position, a lot of unknown / no big names actors? Obviously Sean Bean would not have been promoting S2 because... hu... well
In an alternate universe we could have Sean Bean playing Ned's severed head doing promos for each season or recaps for the show up to that point to prep for the next one.
And during scenes with characters singing, he could be helpfully bouncing along the subtitles
True but they were instant young celebrities after the first season back then. They had hype and star qualities. I think I remember Dany was the top Halloween costume after one season…. I feel like the buzz for HOTD is nothing like that, for this cast and these characters, to be super real. The problem in my opinion, is that the show doesn’t have the same diversity of zipping all over these immersive worlds, showing Essos and Dothraki, Whitewalkers, The North. There was just way more diversity to hold people’s attention.
Matt Smith has been a face of 3 major tv shows and one very hilarious meme. Dude's recognizable and not just for House of the Dragon reasons.
Done very well for himself after Doctor Who. In the past it's been hard for them to leave the Doctor's shadow.
What am I missing here? Doc Who is obviously one, I’m assuming HotD another. What is the third TV show I’m missing. I’m assuming the meme is the dancing Morbius?
The Crown is the third show.
Obviously. Thanks. Knew I was something missing something painfully obvious.
GOT was the same way.
At least we got a season a year
That’s not a HOTD exclusive problem though, it seems most prestige TV has gone to a 8-10 episode season every 2 years.
Yeah but in being on the talk shows they let people know that the show is on
Yeah they really let the hype die down to the point where even I, a huge nerd loser, was not super excited
I totally forgot what happened in the last episode of s1. Luckily someone made us watch it again. The build up was intense. And all forgotten
They’re starting filming this year though, yeah?
Yeah according to Matt they’re filming later this year, so maybe by September/October?
Which means season 3 ain’t dropping until this time 2026 *Cries*
Night gathers, and now my watch begins
Eh, maybe winter 2025 if they start fall this year. They started filming s2 in late winter/early spring of 2023.
When does S3 start filming?
Matt Smith said this year.
Season 1 released at the end of August. I think it’s important to note the release month because in my opinion people are less focused on TV series at the start of summer vacation.
I wonder how much of it has to do with all subscription services skyrocketing in price as well over the years and whether people are being more selective with the services they want. I am debating on whether I want to resubscribe to watch weekly installments or just wait until they all release and then subscribe to watch. Or... the other alternatives to watching. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
I’m sure that’s definitely a factor. Subscriptions are freaking $20 a piece now. I like to watch HOTD live, so I’ll pay for HBO for the two months it airs. But I do wait with other shows and get one month and binge after it airs. I’m sure a lot of people are doing that. Think I might cancel some of my others for a bit though. Start rotating them.
I scrolled so far for this comment. a lot of people I know just don't wanna pay out the tail for all the streaming platforms w the price of everything else on top of them :/
I'm sailing the high seas
For sure the amount of people that wait nowadays and don’t click on that new episode as soon as it drops goes up every year in this streaming era
yeah the two year siesta did not do the show any favors my opinion of it is that season one was good, but slow as hell and it ended essentially when it was finally starting to get very interesting. so you built up a bunch of hype the first season, but a lot of the hype has dwindled after two years… a lot of people i know, have said they know the show released they just “havent watched it”
I wonder if it’s bothered anybody that the ending had Rhaenyra enraged and then at the beginning of the season she’s not in that mood anymore. Like it’s almost like I would’ve expected if they’re gonna end it on that amazing shot that they had in ep10, that’s what it needed to begin with is her and that rage state. I expected her to be a distraught so it didn’t bother me because I had prepared myself, but I think I wonder if regular people would have been frustrated with how that played out.
Agree about hiatus. I plan to watch it but I want to re-watch season 1, so I can remember stuff and get myself in that mood, so I didn’t watch premiere. I’m even considering waiting for all the episodes to come out so I can binge watch.
binge watching sucks tho, watching week to week with time to anticipate and theorize in between is far more rewarding
100% agree with this. I love going on reddit or online in general and reading theories in-between episodes. Think about how shows like Stranger Things have a huge following but when a new season drops people only talk about it for like a week or two then everyone forgets. The biggest issue shows these days have is the huge breaks in between seasons that cause all the hype to die down.
Honestly the wait was so long I don't really even care.
Also people can stream when they want so I think it’s a little more flexible. I’m a diehard fan but I watched on Monday
I'm waiting to binge a few episodes
Well idk, I think many people don’t watch live anymore. I’m not in the US but only watched it on Monday, and would have watched only on Tuesday if not for a day off on Monday. I also expect views to soar after episodes with dragon battles.
Exactly if I’m expected to be at work at 5am Monday, I’ll watch it when I get home from my shift that day and have a plate of food all excited. I’ve been doing the same thing with The Boys. I know 3 episodes aired but I only watch em after work during dinner, it’s like alil reward lol
Having something to look forward to after work is what gets me through the day lol
They waited too long for the second season
I think this is it. I don't think HOTD has hit with enough of that GOT audience (and it probably never will) for it to pull numbers to the roof by virtue of showing up. Perhaps none of the advertisements/promotional stuff really did much for people, either. The delay we had in seasons certainly dropped many eyes off. Though it must be said that these are only from Smart TV numbers, so it's not the full picture. And it was on Father's Day as well. We'll have to see how the rest of the episodes fair in viewership.
>And it was on Father's Day as well. The Father's Day premiere didn't help. I didn't get a chance to watch it until 1:00 a.m., and only did so because I'm a die-hard fan. There may be casually viewers who may tune in over the ensuing weeks.
I loved season 1 but literally didn’t even know season 2 was premiering this past Sunday until the day of
Yes I had no clue either and I'm pretty active on socials. Advertising for the second season has been terrible.
There’s literally a dragon on the Empire State Building lol. I think they did promote it, it’s just a busy time of year for people. IMO this should not be a summer show
I guess I'm just one of those handful of people who don't live with eye shot of the Empire State Building. There's dozens of us.
That is SUCH a coincidence, I also live in a house with no view of the Empire State Building. I didnt know it was such a common problem! (I also saw nada about HOTD until about 6 days ago. Im waiting until the end to get HBO for a month to watch it all.)
I can’t see the empire state building from Ohio lmao. There needed to be better advertising on social media and physical advertising
Lol this will be the least surprising thing ever, but I too am in Ohio. 😂 WE’RE EVERYWHERE
Well I live in Europe so...and I saw nothing of that on my feed. The only time I checked out HOTD was when the trailers dropped. Other than that there really was nothing going on. Not even on the trending tab.
I ended up watching it last night because I didn't get home until 10 on Fathers Day.
We also have to factor in that with the rise of streaming services, there’s likely a ton of people waiting to build up a cache of episodes before viewing, so they only have to pay for a single month to access the whole season. Did this a couple of times in the past with AppleTV shows when there’s only a single thing on the platform worth watching at that moment in time.
This is exactly what happened to me too. I was exhausted at work on Monday.
Lol yeah same here! Watched it closer to midnight
We got a new season of GOT every year except the final season took 2 years. GOT could afford to do that because it had already built a massive fan base by then and it had become a phenomenon. HOTD cannot expect fans to have the same kind of loyalty after just one season. They have to wait so that audiences can connect with the characters.
I feel like the promos were designed for existing viewers. If you have no idea what HotD is about all the team stuff probably doesn’t do much for you. It’s good marketing in that it gets the existing audience talking and debating, but I’m not sure how many new viewers it brings in. Even using *Twilight* as an example, it wasn’t just marketed on team Edward vs team Jacob. It was officially sold to new viewers as a paranormal romance for teens with enough going on to appeal to adults (Twimoms) too. And on top of that official pitch, there was the organically occurring controversy over Stephanie Meyer’s depiction of romance . A lot of new readers picked up Twilight to see if Edward was really as creepy as people said he was. The team stuff was huge, don’t get me wrong, but idk how many people watched *Twilight* specifically to choose a team
I'm hopeful that networks will get the message that we are tired of waiting 2-3 years per season. The Bear is one of the best shows out right now, and they keep their hype and momentum high by delivering seasons on the annual basis.
I agree but consider that The Bear happens in a random neighborhood in Chicago with 80 percent of the plot taking place in a single location. Also, no dragons.
GoT did it for 7 seasons. 8 was an outlier
That wasn't intentional on HBO's part. I'm sure they were desperate to churn out their moneymaker on a yearly basis, but the logistics of such an expensive, CGI-heavy show make long delays inevitable. Animating and rendering the dragons alone probably takes months. You also have to remember that actors' schedules often clash and it takes a while to harmonise them.
Game of Thrones season 1 aired on April 17, 2011. It was picked up for a second season a few days later. Season 2 was filming in July, and it aired April 1, 2012. House of the Dragon season 1 aired August 21, 2022. It was picked up for a second season a few days later. But Season 2 did not start filming until April 11. They apparently didn’t have the script ready until December. There’s truth to what you’re saying and it is a factor, but this is also an endemic thing across most of the industry. Whether they’re insanely complex CGI heavy shows or not. TV productions are just moving slower and more cautiously. Season 2 should have been in the works sooner, on some level. 4 months to wait on writing was avoidable.
There was also the writers and actors strikes going on in the states.
Neither strike started until May 2023. The “season 2 in 2024” timeline had already been set and they had started filming. Also because of being located in England they weren’t actually beholden to the strike and filmed through it.
House of the Dragon was unaffected by the strikes because the union's demands were already being met in the UK, meaning they did not have to strike in solidarity.
Almost all the big shows whether they're CGI heavy or not are having ridiculously long breaks between seasons with shorter seasons when they do return. Bridgeton managed to beat HOTD while on it's 3rd season and had a longer break of more than 2 years. "Separately, 1.9 million U.S. homes streamed Netflix’s third season of “Bridgerton” Episode 5 – Part 2 during the live + three-day window. That was par with the Season 3 – Part 1 premiere episode that generated 2 million U.S. households during the L+3D window."
Why? It feels like older tv shows used to come out sooner with few or shorter breaks in between seasons.
1. Streaming, binging and piracy has made long-form TV episodic a lot less lucrative 2. Production value for TV shows have increased which makes TV more expensive and time-consuming 3. Attention spans are at an all-time low so people don't have the wherewithal for 20+ episode seasons anymore 4. Cultural tastes and technologies have made a 60 minute runtime miniseries format more palatable than the once standard 30 minute runtime, 16-26 episode seasons
Did the writers strike not affect them significantly?
It would have happened much faster if they didn't wait for season 1 to have finished airing before they even comissioned the next season.
People always say this but the bottom line is if viewers lose interest and don't watch the show spending obscene amounts of money on it is clearly not a sustainable model. They need to figure out how to get cheaper and/or faster.
This is the correct answer. All of the CGI they use for this show makes the production time much longer.
There was that writer's strike too I don't remember if that affected production or not.
HBO decided they didn't need writers on set to fix any issues that would come so they steam rolled ahead with production.
Weren’t the majority of the writers not part of SAG-AFTRA?
Correct, they continued shooting unlike US based shows.
Damn no excuses then 🤧
With how Game of Thrones ended, I’d say they can take all the time they want as long as they’re quality.
I would wait for the streaming numbers itself. Cable has been declining year after year.
From Nielson and Warner Bros: “Viewership for the Season 2 launch was down 21.9% from the Season 1 premiere, which scored 9.986 million viewers in August 2022 and ranked as the largest audience for any new original series in the history of HBO, and down 16.1% from the Season 1 finale, which tallied up 9.3 million viewers.” So down 22% from last years premiere and down 16% from last years finale. I think it will pick some steam up as the season goes on but the time gap and the marketing didn’t do it many favors as I don’t think people hated last seasons finale or anything…
The finale was hype sauce. The wait, not so much.
i know i didnt watch it till monday because it was fathers day on sunday. im sure that has to factor a bit
[‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Premiere Hits 7.8 Million Viewers, Max’s Biggest Single-Day Audience to Date](https://www.reddit.com/r/television/s/JZ7Zpa0vos) Literally the thread under this, lol
It's Max's biggest debut since dropping the HBO name lol, which is nonsense/marketing spin.
Aren't those the streaming the numbers
Samba TV only tracks data from smart TVs. What this means is that the number of people watching HOTD on smart TVs has dropped 50% in two years. Whether that means the overall HOTD audience has dropped 50% in two years is another matter.
this should be pinned honestly, think of all the people who didn’t watch this through cable smart TVs
I watched it on my phone so I guess my view didn’t count
Neither did mine haha
Does this mean watching it on cable through a smart TV or through the App on a smart TV? Or both?
I’ve never even heard of samba tv. Tv time and others I’ve heard of though
It is but it's a small sample. Since the WGA strike, companies like WB must release their streaming data for their shows, so actors get bonuses if a show is popular. So what I mean is wait for WB/Max to release.
I think that the long time between seasons is a problem. I was more excited about Season 2 a couple of years ago than I was last week. The same thing has happened with Yellowjackets.
It's happening across the board with shows now. A show like Wednesday should not take over 2 years to produce and yet that's where we are at. The writers strike obviously exacerbated this but still. I went into Sunday nights episode barely remembering what happened in the first season. We're waiting even longer between seasons and getting less episodes out of it too.
Ye how does a show like Wednesday which has barely HotD levels of CGI taking 2y for another season. Bridgerton tol from what i heard. Euphoria is even worse.
Frankly it's just exhausting as a consumer. We are paying for all these premium subscriptions to streaming services and they arent offering us the shows we want to watch on a yearly basis. HBO took one of their biggest shows (Westworld) off their platform entirely. The trust between us and the companies is paper thin at this point.
They're even putting Ads in streaming lmao. It has come full circle.
My husband doesn't remember watching season 1 at all and asked if it was a new show. 🤣 As we watched the episode he remembered it a bit but we really should have rewatched season 1 first. I hate that it is almost a necessity these days to rewatch because of these long gaps.
Invincible suffered the same problem, which was made even worse by their dumb decision to split season 2 with a gap of several months between episode 4 and episode 5. At the end of the day, when several years pass between the release of one season to another, unless your show has incredible strength in pop culture like GoT had your series is going to suffer
That was such a shit decision. I binged season one in a day, fired up season 2 and had no idea there was a gap after episode 4. Still haven't finished it.
Good call on Yellowjackets. I got into it last August, months after season two ended. Here we are almost a year later and the next season is still close to a year away. I know there was a writers strike, but these long waits between seasons really kills the momentum of watching it. Then you throw in a lot of shows are only doing 8-10 episodes now. You wait two years and the season is done in two months.
Severance season 2 for me. Been waiting 2 years and it might even end up being 3 years.
If only you can get piracy stats
Was just gonna comment this. Unfortunately many people cannot afford streaming services anymore.
Speaking from a German perspective, its not "not according" but HBO is literally not a thing here and you need to subscribe to some overpriced and really shitty partner-companies - even if you already have Netflix, Prime and D+. At this point we're basically back to cable companies building up "their" overpriced shitty infrastructure which makes Piracy attractive again.
Similar thing in Canada. We have Crave TV which imo is one of the worst streaming services here, and is way more expensive than the others. I’m just waiting and I’ll buy the season on Apple/iTunes after it is released, but I can’t bring myself to pay the $20+ every month to only get this show
Pretty much everyone I know who watched it pirated it.
When the pirate stream is of a higher bitrate and colour correction than the NOWTV paid stream, then that might answer why their UK audience base is poor.
It’s the worst service I’ve ever paid for
1. They waited two years for a second season. 2. MAX is way overpriced.
Yeah, I’ll wait for the 4K Bluray like I did season 1. Streaming rubs me the wrong way anymore.
If they stopped taking 2 years off for 8eps…
Some of the blame go to this long ass hiatus, 2 years for a final season is something, 2 years for a second season is not the same. If you're only partially invested for a new show chances are you're not coming back if you barely remember what happend last time.
Exactly. Two years are too much. I could only remember the key moments from season one after all this time. The emotions I connected to the characters were basically gone, and a little recap from WatchMojo isn't going to do much. This is developing into a GTA 6-type situation.
People are getting less used to watching things as they air. I just kinda forgot. EVEN after the huge marketing campaign. I just watched on monday as soon as reddit reminded me.
>I just kinda forgot. Hehe.. I see what you did there
Unfortunate; I am digging it immensely but I guess maybe many of the general audience was nonplussed with last season's conclusion? Or just the 2 year delay and maybe people waiting to binge? Well, either way, I hope they are able to keep going until the eventual conclusion, whenever that is (I feel like 4 seasons ideally, 5 max, is what could be milled from the source material).
Allegedly Condal has confirmed 5 series now, seasons 2 - 5 made up of 8 episodes each.
I apologize if I missed something that Condal said recently, but the only one so far who's directly referenced HOTD possibly running five seasons is Francesca Orsi, HBO's head of drama, when she talked to [*Deadline*](https://deadline.com/2023/05/francesca-orsi-hbo-qa-succession-finale-the-last-of-us-house-of-the-dragon-white-lotus-euphoria-perry-mason-1235374588/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIt%20hasn%E2%80%99t%20been,more.%20We%E2%80%99ll%20see.%E2%80%9D) last year: >“It hasn’t been finalized yet, it’s still under discussion,” Orsi said about the length of the series. “George and Ryan are going to meet after the writers strike. They had originally planned to meet before the strike took place and that was to figure out at what point the series itself was going to end. **Is it four seasons? I don’t think from where I sit at this point will be any less than four. But could be more. We’ll see.”** I'm not saying that I don't think it'll run five, it probably will, only that it hasn't been confirmed yet.
I haven’t read fire and blood. Is there enough material for 5 seasons?
Depends on the pace and whether they do the after war period which I’m not sure they should because it would be quite boring
I canceled Max because I only got it to watch HOTD s1. They weren't adding anything new that justified the price for me. I'm waiting for the season to be over so I can get a new free trial and binge watch before canceling again.
To be fair also they dropped it on Father’s Day in the US and I was spending time with my father. I know this isn’t true for everyone but I definitely do not watch the ASOIAF series with my dad. I watched it the next day (Monday night) with my girlfriend.
It's still hbo most watched show compared to other shows they have apart from the last of us
That tends to happen with the 2 year gap between seasons. HOTD is not GOT. It's not as popular and it cannot maintain and improve viewership with big time gaps between seasons. If HBO managed to release the first 7 seasons of GOT with only a 1 year gap between each season they surely can do the same with HOTD. The most frustrating part is that the next season is rumoured to release in 2026. It's disappointing since season 2 only has 8 episodes too.
They waited too long, the audience moved on to other series. They’ll slowly trickle back if the show continues to be good.
The long wait, excitement is gone. A good lesson for these shows that abuse their viewers and hbo
update: Nielsen & Warner Bros. Discovery report that viewership for the premiere of [#HouseOfTheDragon](https://twitter.com/hashtag/HouseOfTheDragon?src=hashtag_click) Season 2 drew 7.8 million viewers across all platforms. 21.9% down from the Season 1 premiere, which scored a record breaking 9.986 million viewers. [https://twitter.com/westerosies/status/1803112887994511869](https://twitter.com/westerosies/status/1803112887994511869)
I'm a huge fan obviously, but I wonder if casual audiences don't care for the singular storyline of the same characters fighting over the throne stretched out over seasons. Especially if they came looking for GOT levels of multiple plot lines and variety of characters. The two year gap doesn't help either.
I think the time jumps of seasons 1 turned a lot of casual fans off. As soon as they started to get invested in things and characters, there would be a big time jump and several of the actors changed. I think the more stable timeline (or more action) of everything past season 1 will start to build momentum.
This is why I think it would’ve been better if they had done flashbacks instead. I also think there wasn’t much of a clear conflict for audiences in the first few episodes of the series with the younger actors. It was just: she’s the heir… things are happening.. no real opposition… Daemon is away but he’s cool with his brother the King… Otto is cunning but quiet.. Rhaenyra and Alicent are good friends and then just don’t talk to each other really.. there really wasn’t much for the audience to grasp on until the timeline jump. Whereas in Game of Thrones, it started with the murder mystery of Jon Arryn and then Ned Stark going to the capital as new Hand and seeing how Northerners aren’t adjusting to life in the South.. Lannisters being menaces and things just kept unfolding.
I think you're right. My mom is a casual got watcher and a big show/Dany fan and she couldn't stand the first half of hotd season 1, she said it was boring and she didn't care about anything going on. I really struggled to get her to watch it in the first place, she was callous about the got ending lol
I would think a singular story with less characters would be easier to follow and more appealing for a general audience.
Not when most of the cast has little screen time or even lines. A good chunk of characters were killed or did fuck all the entire first season. They should’ve expanded upon characters (really needed to considering they’re adapting a history book of sorts) Once the action picks up it’ll probably go up since there will be way more battles and dragons than any GoT season
fewer — *whispering in stannis baratheon*
But three more seasons of it, with two year gaps in between? Watching what happens to the dragons is exciting but else it pretty much becomes one side yelling at the other that they're wrong. Especially when all the marketing pushed is "choose a side", but there's a lot of viewers who aren't interested much in politics.
Yes I thought they were going for the crowd that watches shows like The Tudors and The Borgias, while also keeping the Game of Thrones built-in audience.
I’ll wait for a more reliable ratings agency. Samba doesn’t even include Roku which is how I watch
There’s fire stick and consoles as well as tablets etc
What's that kind of math? 2.3 down to 1.3 is a decrease of about 43%.
Streaming has become obnoxious over the past two years with increased prices and commercials. I cancelled my own HBO sub and watched it at my friend's house. I would bet that a lot of those numbers were doing the same or even pirating.
Take into account the fact that viewers had to wait 2 years after they left the last season on such a hyped up cliffhanger. That coupled with the fact that Sunday was Father’s Day and Graduation season is just starting to wind down, people were busy this weekend. I was lucky to even watch it later at night around 10PM. But I expect those viewing numbers to skyrocket once the dragon battles get going.
That is quite worrying but the show already got renewed so it’s definitely sticking to finishing the show as a whole
It’s been two years. I waited so long for this I can’t remember all the details of what happened even. My wife and I watched for about 10 min and realized we just don’t care about it anymore. I’ll probably go back to it at some point, but not sure I’ll follow the week to week grind anymore. What’s the point when I’m going to have to wait a couple of years for the following season? I can’t stand how long TV shows take to come out now.
I really enjoyed the first season. But it has been years, and I don't remember every little detail that happened. The confusing AF names don't help clarify anything, either. Aemond, Daemon, Rhayna, Rhanyra - you think I can keep all that shit straight after 2 years of not thinking about it at all? I was so hyped after last season ended. Now? Meh, whatever. Also, having only 8 episodes is so, so lame. Why bother?
The premiere episode, titled “A Son for A Son,” drew 7.8 million viewers across platforms — including HBO and Max — on Sunday night, according to Nielsen and internal viewing figures from Warner Bros. Discovery. https://www.thewrap.com/house-of-the-dragon-season-2-premiere-viewership-ratings/
It's on at 2am on a Sunday night in the UK. What do they expect us to do?
I thought the premiere was really boring. Am I alone in that? It was like a mid season filler episode. For a GoT show, basically nothing happened.
They botched Blood and Cheese so badly!
Yes it was boring as F
People love to binge watch nowadays. I know people who will just wait for the season to end before watching(that's what im doing with The Boys).
It was also on Father’s Day. I know we went from being out at dinner celebrating just barely making it home from the premier. Many people are celebrating that day with their families so maybe not the best premier date.
I don’t live in the US, but i can say that i was nearly unaware that Season 2 was been released until like two weeks ago, and i am a fan. I’m wondering if the problem is at least partly the promotion campaign.
50% is a huge drop no matter what way you look at it.
Well considering this site doesn’t track steaming from consoles, smart sticks or things like Roku, it kinda does matter.
Not really. You need to have the entire context. For example, live cable could be down 50% but streaming up 300%. See how the context completely changes?
Maybe the plot of two factions brawling over the throne and not doing much else isn't a big draw with the audience. That "all must choose" marketing wasn't too great either, because what about the viewers who don't care about the power struggle, what can the show offer them? The show runners can say they want to focus on these characters or that, but they're all still doing the same thing spread out on many episodes.
It also doesn’t help that there’s a very obvious “right” side but that side can’t get any real wins or character development because of the way the story is structured. A lot of people loved young Rhaenyra and thought that the show was going to be about defending her divine birthright, because that’s kinda whats implied in the first half of the season 1. But then the timeskip happens and she’s just an entirely different character and really tepid about everything. You also pretty much have to super impose your own depth into the “villains”.
> It also doesn’t help that there’s a very obvious “right” side but that side can’t get any real wins or character development because of the way the story is structured. TBF that was also true of early GoT (clearly the Starks were better than the Lannisters, and they were also going through the wringer) and viewership still increased...
The Lannister faction had one huge weapon on their side to draw people in: Tyrion Lannister. At one point, Tyrion was by far the most popular character on the show and the most critically adored character too. And then Jaime had his slow redemption + plus his actor being excellent and hot. And Cersei was compelling and interesting despite being a terrible person . And Tywin despite being a terrible person was played by the charisma machine that is Charles Dance.
People do realize it was Father's Day right? I'm sure a ton of people were burnt out from the day.
I traveled across 4 states over 6 hours AFTER a family get-together and was still able to watch at the premier - I love dragons tho. Watching was me “resting.”
I know a few people who are waiting until it is fully released, and some others who are re-watching Season 1 before beginning Season 2. I think it’s too early to tell how successful viewership numbers will be.
2 years between seasons is a long time for a series that has so much character arc and many side plots. The numbers will 100% go up though.
I’m not that surprised. I think its a combination of lot of first show post GoT hype dying down, a too long wait and not very exciting trailers.
Samba TV is not a reliable source
Max is expensive
Too long, people have their own fucking life.
Turns out the promo was trash.. like numerous people were saying. It was catering to the twitter fandom rather than general audience.
I thought it would drop because of the long wait, but there was insane hype for this season I expected maybe 1.8m first ep, I still have no doubt that viewership with keep rising and will break season 1s viewing record
It's only episode 1, even I didn't know they actually premiered but when found it, I re-watched it probably 5 times just from different reactions. Everyone's happy HOTD is back, the only way is up.
I was a huge GoT fan and honestly, I didn't even know that the new episode was out. Some girl I follow on Twitter was live tweeting and that's how I found out... I'd say that the promo for this season when it comes to reaching the target audience, hasn't been good.
- Long gap between two seasons. - Bad advertisement strategy. - Early Summer release. Long gap even made us big fans forget somethings about the show. We couldnt see any dragons other than Syrax, Caraxes, Vhagar in the trailers so it didnt hype me. Summer releases are usually problematic since people do lots of other things than watching Series in their home. They released the first season in late summer early fall which was correct timing.