‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Premiere Hits 7.8 Million Viewers, Down 22% From Series Launch but Bringing Max Its Biggest Streaming Day Ever

HBO

“House of the Dragon” returned to HBO and Max with 7.8 million viewers on Sunday night, putting the Season 2 premiere 22% below the 10 million viewers that the “Game of Thrones” prequel series launched with in 2022.

That drop is partially attributable to a decline in linear viewing; per Nielsen, about 1 million fewer viewers tuned in to HBO’s cable channel on Sunday than did for the Season 1 premiere. Despite the decline, according to Warner Bros Discovery, the episode still led Max to its biggest streaming day ever, both in the U.S. and overall.

WBD also noted that this was the biggest Season 2 premiere that any of the company’s streamers have achieved in Europe — which was expected, as Max only launched in Europe in May, and is generally more popular than Discovery+ and Max’s now-defunct predecessors, HBO Go and HBO Now. By contrast, Max was available in Latin America back when the first season of “House of the Dragon” premiered (though it was still known as HBO Max there until February), and Season 2 still marked the region’s biggest Max launch, drawing 30% more viewers than Season 1.

In the week leading up to the Season 2 premiere, WBD recorded the strongest streaming engagement for Season 1 in over 19 months, totaling 1 million viewers.

After premiering with 10 million viewers in 2022, “House of the Dragon” Season 1 hit its peak with Episode 2, reaching 10.2 million. Exact data was not made available for Episodes 3-9, but Episode 10 closed the season with 9.3 million viewers.