Despite all the novel offerings of House of the Dragon and the critical acclaim the show has received thus far, a new rating announcement by Nielsen could be a worrying development for the powers that be at HBO. According to the linear data, the show’s third episode, “Second of His Name,” lost nearly one million viewers on cable, which is a staggering 28.6% decrease from last week.
Per Variety, Warner Bros. has refused to share the viewing numbers for streaming and digital platforms, but what Nielsen has released of the turning figures for HBO reveals that only 2.5 million showed up for the third episode, which is conspicuously lower than episode one’s 3.2 million and episode two’s 3.5 million.
Are fans already fatigued with more of Westeros on HBO, despite the show boasting a completely new character line-up and story? Is it simply because more and more people are jumping on their HBO Max account to catch the series? I guess we won’t know the answer to these unless Warner Bros. decides to share the streaming data for episode three, just like they did with the first two.
If the numbers add up then, and that means racking up some 10 million views like the former episodes, then the Game of Thrones machine needn’t worry about waning interest in the world of the Seven Kingdoms. If they don’t, well, that’s an altogether different implication, at least so far as HBO and WB Discovery are concerned.
House of the Dragon chronicles the history of the Targaryen dynasty, from the reign of King Viserys to the twilight of their catastrophic civil war, known as the Dance of Dragons. It’s still unclear how long the spinoff prequel series will run, but from a chronological standpoint, the story has just begun.
The fourth episode, titled “King of the Narrow Sea,” premieres on Sept. 11.