Cable Ratings: Big Little Lies, Euphoria, Fear the Walking Dead, & more
Yet, HBO at the moment is bucking that trend — and we begin this discussion with Big Little Lies season 2. The show’s third episode drew 1.62 million viewers, a pretty sizable increase of more than 100,000 live viewers from its previous season high. This is also the second-largest viewer total for an episode of this series so far — the only time we’ve seen a better number is for the season 1 finale, and that’s an episode build on hype on top of hype with a hype cherry at the top of it. It’s feasible to think that the season 2 finale could generate somewhere near the same sort of ratings bump when it airs.
To date, Big Little Lies is up more than 25% in terms of live viewership from season 1 — that’s incredible given the long wait between seasons and also the oh-so-simple fact that television viewership tends to be drifting more and more away from live viewing. We’re only talking about live numbers here — the majority of people these days are watching television after the fact via streaming/DVR.
As for Euphoria, this seems like a perfect transition to HBO’s other Sunday-night show, as it’s already generated a lot of discussion for having one of the biggest online followings (percentage-wise, anyway) of a new series. Yet, let’s not discount the live ratings, either. The second episode drew 574,000 viewers to HBO, down only 3,000 from the premiere. That is an incredible retention rate, and remember that other than Zendaya, we would argue that the Euphoria cast is really lacking big, marketable names. Meanwhile, Big Little Lies has multiple Oscar winners including one of the greatest performers of all time in Meryl Streep. Not bad for a new show, especially one gathering up so much controversy.
As for some other shows of note…
Fear the Walking Dead drops – We’re sad about this. How could we not be? It’s a good season so far! Yet, with barely a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic and just over 1.6 million viewers, this was the lowest live total of the season. We don’t want to see anything happen to this show since it’s finally going in the right direction.
City on a Hill falls – What happened to the Showtime drama this weekend is a little more par for the course for new shows. It fell to just over 440,000 live viewers, a pretty steep drop from the premiere. Since there are other viewership measures the show could still be okay, but on some level (especially with Kevin Bacon in the cast), we imagine that the network has at least some reasonably high expectations here.
Interested in some more news on the next new Big Little Lies episode?
Then be sure to head over here to get the promo for what’s next — with some more analysis to go along with it.
What did you watch this past weekend? Be sure to share right now in the comments, and come back soon for some more information.
(Photo: HBO)