‘Game of Thrones’ season 4 premiere delivers dragon-sized ratings

You had a feeling this was coming when “Game of Thrones” season 4 scheduled its premiere the week after “The Walking Dead” came to a close. Now, it’s official.

Overall, the HBO series drew an incredibly figure of 6.6 million viewers last night, which not only is the most-watched episode of the show to date, but it is also the most-watched episode of anything on the network in over six years. This means that it was better than any episode of “True Blood.” The last episode to top it? The series finale of “The Sopranos,” which drew an incredible viewing audience of almost 12 million viewers.

What makes this premiere (which you can read our review for here) all the more impressive is the fact that it does air on a network that is typically inhibited in some way from being able to get these sort of numbers. Why is that? Think along the lines of the cost of having HBO every month. This is the most-pirated show on TV, and if you were able to have the number of illegal viewers watching the show actually tuning in to HBO to see it, we anticipate that there would be “Walking Dead” level ratings on tap here.

The show was so popular last name that it crashed the HBO GO app for the second timein two months; most recently, the app crashed during the “True Detective” finale, and we have to assume that the network at least tried to repair that situation again before this episode aired.

What did you think about the “Game of Thrones” premiere, and are you happy that the show is drawing this level of success? Share your thoughts below, and to get some more throne-worthy updates from us at CarterMatt, sign up now for our official newsletter.

Photo: HBO