The Last of Us Has Insanely Successful Debut on HBO Max

By Spencer Perry

Though the series has been on for roughly a month now, we're getting an idea of how The Last of Us has been performing on HBO Max, and in short, it's huge. Linear viewership for the series on HBO has already been revealed by the premium cable network, indicating growth with every single episode that is unprecedented in the history of HBO. The latest batch of streaming data from Nielsen has been released by the third-party and though The Last of Us didn't make the actual Top 10, Variety has details on how much the series was being watched. 

Nielsen's latest data measures the week of Monday, January 9 to Sunday, January 15, the night that The Last of Us premiered. Since the show only debuted on the final night Nielsen was measuring viewership, arriving with just three hours left on the clock, it's not in the Top 10, but according to the trade, the show was watched some 223 million minutes by US subscribers in that three hour window. For reference, the #10 title on the list of originals is Netflix's The Recruit, which was watched 295 million minutes for the entire week. Disney's Bluey was the #10 title for the entirety of streaming with 646 million minutes streamed. 

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This time next week we'll likely see The Last of Us debuting to numbers more like Wednesday and House of the Dragon. To further mark how huge the show is, the trade reports that the series' first few hours of streaming is just 100 million minutes behind House of the Dragon's premiere in the same timeframe. Considering the growth that The Last of Us has experienced in linear viewership over the weeks, and the decline that House of the Dragon saw, it won't be long before it's even bigger than the Game of Thrones prequel series.

When does The Last of Us air?

The Last of Us airs on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. Eastern every Sunday with The Last of Pods debuting immediately following each show. For more Last of Us content, check out ComicBook and Entertainment Tonight's new podcast: The Last of Pods. The podcast will include breakdowns of each episode, interviews with special guests from the show, and more.

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