HBO Viewership Dropped By Almost 40% When Game Of Thrones Ended

The backlash against the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones was loud and relentless, with fans blasting almost every creative decision made by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, which made it clear that the duo struggled greatly without having George R.R. Martin’s source material to rely on for inspiration.

Even the stars of the show themselves have admitted that they’d happily sign the petition to see season 8 remade, but as an undisputed global and cultural phenomenon, people still tuned in despite the drastic drop off in quality. The size of the audience positively exploded during each subsequent adventure in Westeros, with 2.2 million people watching the very first episode before viewership steadily increased, peaking at the 13.6 million who gathered around their TV sets for the finale.

HBO might be moving forward with a handful of spinoffs, some of which are much closer to getting into production than others, but an alarming new report just goes to show how important Game of Thrones was to the network’s success.  While the end of the series isn’t the sole factor, analysts believe the epic saga drawing to a close has been the main driving force behind HBO viewership plummeting by 38% since the season 8 finale aired.

Not only that, but 51% of the key 18-49 demographic has also vanished, with none of the returning projects or new titles arriving on HBO over the last 20 months drawing in those lapsed audiences who spent eight years religiously watching Game of Thrones. Now that HBO Max is in the picture, though, it should in theory be easier to entice new viewers given the sheer volume of content on the way, especially when you know that they’re going to market the absolute hell out of House of the Dragon.