HBO’s Game of Thrones is no stranger to setting records. As the series continued to get popular year after year, it would often break viewership records for season premieres and finales. With Sunday’s last-ever episode of the series, one could expect that it would break all previous records, and it did.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the final episode of the final season didn’t just break the record for the show, it actually set a new record for the most watched episode of any HBO show ever with 13.6 million views on the live HBO channel.
It’s an impressive achievement despite the fact that most fans have been less than happy with the way the final season has been wrapped up this year. Some have even launched a petition calling for HBO to remake the entire season which is most likely not going to happen.
Fans have also expressed serious reservations about the finale. Nevertheless, they did tune in to watch, though, with the total number of viewers going up to 19.3 million when you factor in the streaming and on-demand rewatches as well. That’s a new record for both Game of Thrones and HBO. So despite the disappointments and the wayward water bottles, it seems that HBO’s most popular show did go out on top.