Cable ratings: How ‘Ballers’ season 2, ‘The Night Of’ episode 2 fared for HBO

We already know that “Power” season 3 set some ratings records over on Starz for its premiere on Sunday night, but how did HBO’s own lineup fare? While we’re not sure that any of the numbers are good enough to trumpet from the top of the nearest building, there were still some worthy performances there that suggest that this could be a very solid lineup for the network this summer. Sure, it’s not going to be “Game of Thrones,” but nobody expected it to be.

“Ballers” – The season 2 premiere of the Dwayne Johnson series drew close to 1.6 million viewers and a 0.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic, not that the latter matters as much since we’re talking about a network without advertisements. This performance is down from the series premiere (2.16 million viewers and a 1.1 rating), but it is an increase from the season 1 finale (1.4 million viewers and a 0.7 rating). If nothing else, this rating shows that those who stuck through the entirety of season 1 are interested in seeing what comes next for Spencer Strasmore and some of his Anderson Financial clients.

“The Night Of” – Episode 2 of the pretty incredible drama drew close to 1.3 million viewers and also a 0.5 rating, which mark pretty amazing increases from the 780,000 viewers and the 0.3 rating that the premiered scored. Granted, there is a caveat here in that the premiere was watched by many well before it premiered on HBO, so those numbers are somewhat skewed. Still, it’s impressive that many people were hooked enough on the premiere to watch episode 2 live.

“Vice Principals” – The new comedy starring Danny McBride and Walton Goggins drew 1.15 million viewers and a 0.5 rating, a solid start by our estimation.

With all of these shows, remember that we’re talking about live+same day ratings, which will certainly balloon once more streams, repeat views, and other measures are calculated in their entirety.