House of the Dragon Nearly Doubles Rings of Power Viewership After Season 1 Finale

HBO's House of the Dragon broke all kinds of viewership and streaming records throughout its first season. It delivered the most-watched premiere ever on the premium network and had massive streaming numbers on HBO Max each and every week. The series continued the Game of Thrones tradition of huge ratings, and that trend continued through its Season 1 finale. In fact, in the week after the finale, House of the Dragon viewership nearly doubled that of fellow blockbuster fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

On Thursday, Nielsen shared its streaming data for the week of October 17th through October 23rd. The final day of that timeframe was the day the House of the Dragon finale premiered on HBO and HBO Max, so its first several hours of viewership were part of that week's count. The finale episode was enough to lift House of the Dragon to more than one billion minutes streamed over the course of the week.

In that same time span, Amazon's The Rings of Power was viewed for 570 million minutes, a little over half of House of the Dragon's streaming viewership. That may seem like a massive discrepancy but take the comparison with a grain of salt. House of the Dragon has two more total episodes than Rings of Power, giving fans more of the show to watch in a given week. The Rings of Power Season 1 finale also debuted in the week before this particular time frame, so the day one boost for the episode wasn't part of the count like House of the Dragon's was. Both series proved to be massive streaming successes throughout their freshman runs.

Will There Be More Game of Thrones Spinoffs?

HBO has had all sorts of different Game of Thrones projects in development for years, but only two have actually made it to production. One series shot a pilot but was ultimately scrapped by HBO. The other is House of the Dragon. Given the success of the latter, it should come as no surprise that HBO is looking to make more shows in that franchise.

"I think probably the next thing would be [House of the Dragon] season two," said Bloys. "I try not to comment too much [on] development, so there's not a whole lot to say, other than when we find the story that George is happy with and we're happy with, we'll move forward."

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