Game of Thrones season seven premiere is a major ratings hit

More Brits than ever stayed up well past bedtime on Sunday night to watch Game of Thrones, giving Sky Atlantic its largest live audience for a simulcast in history.

The first episode of season seven, Dragonstone, also broke the channel’s record for largest overnight audience for a GoT episode.

115,000 stayed up for the 2am simulcast with the US, while less impatient fans caught up the next day – bringing the total figure for the episode up to 2.04 million through recordings and on demand.

A further 788,000 tuned in for the repeat at the more UK-friendly time of 9pm on Monday 17th July.

Count up all the people who watched the episode from a recording in the first 24 hours and you get a grand total of 2.83 million, the largest overnight audience for a Game of Thrones episode in Sky Atlantic’s history.

And it seems the hype around Game of Thrones only grows with each season, as that figure is 30% higher than for the launch of season six.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Game of Thrones notched up 16.1 million viewers for the season premiere – its biggest overnight audience by far.

Including repeats and streaming, the HBO show made an audience increase of 50% from last year’s season opener.

Will season seven have record ratings – or is it just the season premiere that has people tuning in?

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