Ratings: ‘Game of Thrones’ season 5 balloons further with DVR, HBO NOW included

Everyone knows that “Game of Thrones” is going to have enormous ratings. Assuming anything else is crazy, when you know already that this is the most-successful show in the history of HBO.

The only real mystery that remains here is just learning a thing or two more about just how successful the show really is this season, given that there were external factors hampering it. The fact that the first four episodes leaked is never really a ringing endorsement, but in this case, it turns out to not really matter that much! HBO confirmed today that for the premiere episode airing on Sunday, April 12, a total of 18.1 million viewers watched within the first seven days. This includes everything from live viewing to DVR recordings, on-demand viewing, and streams from HBO GO and the new HBO NOW app. It does not include piracy, but with that it is easy to assume that more than 20 million people easily have seen this episode.

More and more viewers will likely catch up on the show during the season; the average total for episodes in season 4 was over 19 million a week with authorized viewings, and it will probably be even higher when the dust settles here.

While these seasons always tend to go fast (we are already 30% of the way through now, believe it or not), there are still seven more episodes to go. Isn’t that something to smile about? We’ll have some other coverage of it every step of the way.

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