As you may expect, the series finale, “The Iron Throne”, has become the most-watched series finale for any program in Sky, the United Kingdom’s subscription broadcaster for Game of Thrones. But there is a twist! Another episode was the most watched overall…
As originally reported by The Hollywood Reporter, at 5.789 million cumulative viewers, the Game of Thrones series finale, “The Iron Throne” broke the finale record once established by the previous finale, season seven’s “The Dragon and the Wolf,” which stood at 5.170 million. For the sake of comparison, the (somewhat) equivalent figure in the United States, which accounts for overnight and streaming viewers, was 19.3 million.
And yet, unlike in the States, “The Iron Throne” was only the most-watched finale in the United Kingdom; not the most-watched episode in all Sky programs or this season: surprisingly, that would be “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” the calm-before-the-storm second episode in this final season, which enjoyed a viewership of 6.31 million.
In the United States, by contrast, this quiet yet beloved second episode was the least watched Game of Thrones episode this year, at 10.29 million, behind not only all of season eight episode but also season seven’s “Eastwatch” (which came after the explosive cliffhanger in “A Spoils of War”) and the finale, “The Dragon and the Wolf.”
On average, each season eight episode had a cumulative audience of 6.081 million, which is said to be “the biggest-ever series performance of any Sky program”, and “up 28 percent from the previous record of season 7, which sat at 4.76 million.” Another interesting fact is the demographic breakdown of the audience by reported gender, which was an almost equal 51-to-49 percent male/female split.
