'House Of The Dragon': HBO Renews 'Game Of Thrones' Prequel For A Second Season

To the surprise of no one, especially after the show debuted to the largest audience for an original series in the network’s history, HBO has renewed their “Game Of Thrones” prequel “House Of The Dragon” for a second season. The series premiere drew in nearly 10 million on Sunday night. If anything, that indicates that Westeros still has an audience, despite the justified misgivings fans have about how the original “Game Of Thrones” ended.  

READ MORE: ‘House Of The Dragon’ TV Review: ‘Game Of Thrones’ Prequel Reclaims Legacy Of Hit HBO Series

Deadline has some interesting data about the show’s opening numbers. According to HBO, Sunday night viewership for a network series represents just 20-40% of the show’s total gross audience. That means the 9.983 million who tuned in Sunday night to “House Of The Dragon” are just a fraction of who will ultimately watch the show. On top of that, the prequel’s premiere also topped the 2011 premiere “Game Of Thrones” by almost 350% in viewership. That’s high but not as high as the 82-minute series finale of “Game Of Thrones” in 2019, which had 19.3 million viewers. But Sunday night’s numbers indicate that 19.3 million for a single episode is well within reach for “House Of The Dragon.”

That is, of course, if “House Of The Dragon” ends up being as eminently addictive and watchable as the original series. It isn’t easy to assess that after only one episode. Still, the consensus critical response to the new show’s premiere is cautiously optimistic, if not a little redundant to its forebear, so it will take a few more episodes to find out. And with the show getting another season, it now has additional episodes to find its legs if the first batch doesn’t catch on like HBO hopes it does.

Based on Nielson and first-party data, over 20 million viewers have watched the first episode of “House Of The Dragon” across HBO, on-demand, and HBO Max platforms in the US alone. It was also a big hit on social media, ranking as the #1 trending topic on Twitter and Google Trends; in Twitter’s case, it ranked #1 for 14 hours straight. So, it’s evident that “Game Of Thrones” still has a mass appeal despite the massive backlash to the final episode of the original series.  

HBO and HBO Max CCO Casey Bloys couldn’t be happier at the numbers “House Of The Dragon” keeps putting up. “It was wonderful to see millions of “Game of Thrones” fans return with us to Westeros last night. “House of the Dragon” features an incredibly talented cast and crew who poured their heart and soul into the production, and we’re ecstatic with viewers’ positive response,” he said in a press release. “We look forward to sharing with audiences what else George [R.R. Martin], Ryan [Condal], and Miguel [Sapochnik] have in store for them this season.”  

Of course, these are viewership numbers after only one episode. Half of those nearly 10 million viewers could skip out on this Sunday’s episode of “House Of The Dragon” and the remainder of this season altogether. Still, numbers don’t lie, and if they are good enough for HBO to renew their new tentpole for another season, that bodes well for the various other “Game Of Thrones” content they have in development. If the “House Of The Dragon” continues to soar, “Game Of Thrones” fans may indeed see Jon Snow return onscreen for further adventures. Only time, and viewership numbers, will tell.