Right now, audiences are loving HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us. The new iteration of a franchise, which began as a video game, is burning up with critical acclaim and fan adoration, and will be debuting its next episode a bit earlier than it usually does.
For those unaware, Sunday has been the fixture day for programming on HBO for decades. It is such a ubiquitous thing that Paul Rudd and Jason Segel have a joke about it in 2009’s I Love You, Man. It has caused imitators to follow in the basic cable space and, while this worked for years to the extent the network used to use the slogan “Sunday is … HBO,” the more fragmented viewing landscape combined with different corporate ownership in the form of Warner Bros. Discovery has had to think in a different way and adapt, and, as a result, “Endure and Survive” will be shifted to avoid the annual Super Bowl football event.
An article from Deadline Hollywood confirms the next part of the story will air this Friday at 9 PM for eastern time and 6 PM on the West Coast. This will be exclusive to HBO Max, while the episode itself will still broadcast at its regular time on Sunday, and, while the network and those involved with the production have not clarified their reasons, Deadline Hollywood concurs with our view it is due to the game and view disparity between the show and the most-recent NFL championship matchup lends credence to this.
As is noted in the Deadline Hollywood report, the premiere episode of The Last of Us brought in an audience of 4.7 million while the third episode had 6.4 million tuning in across HBO Max and the platforms broadcast siblings. On the other hand, the Super Bowl last year had about 100 million people watching and, with this change, they will not need delayed stats to engage viewers.
The Last of Us will not be putting out any other early episodes before its March 12 finale. After this, they will be back in their regular time slot and a second season of the show has been ordered, though it will likely not just adapt all of the second game. As well, though this is a good surprise for fans, initial research suggests this is unprecedented with modern Super Bowl airings. We could not find any other shows which moved up their release dates, though several have served as lead-out programming, too.