The Last of Us premiere tops House of the Dragon in streaming stats
From Jan. 16 to Jan. 22, The Last of Us officially surpassed House of the Dragon in premiere week streams, with 837 million minutes watched.
The premiere of HBO's The Last of Us has officially surpassed the streaming premiere of House of the Dragon. Based on the critically acclaimed 2013 video game of the same name, The Last of Us premiered on January 15 and has quickly become HBO's latest hit. Before the post-apocalyptic zombie series, HBO released the equally popular Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon in August 2022. House of the Dragon is HBO's biggest series debut to date, with 10 million viewers worldwide tuning in to watch the premiere episode.
In the latest Nielsen data, episode 1 of The Last of Us has been confirmed to be more popular than House of the Dragon, at least when it comes to streaming.
Making its countdown debut, we see the first of @HBOMax’s #TheLastofUs on our charts–with over 837 million minutes viewed; it’s quite the debut. pic.twitter.com/a2GutGRB0F— Nielsen (@nielsen) February 16, 2023" window.arrayOfEmbedScripts["twitter"] = ""
"The Last of Us" ranked No. 6 on the Nielsen Streaming Chart for the week of January 16-22 (the first full week after its premiere), with 837 million minutes watched. In the same time period after its premiere, House of the Dragon had just 741 million minutes watched (according to Deadline).
HBO's Continued Streaming Success
According to HBO, The Last of Us has since The show's first two episodes averaged about 21.3 million viewers across all platforms at the time of its release. These streaming figures only include viewership for The Last of Us on HBO Max and do not include cable viewership. The zombie series was the only HBO Max show to break into the top 10 of the Nielsen streaming chart from Jan. 16-22, with Netflix shows dominating the rest of the list.
The Last of Us and House of the Dragon were both critical successes for HBO. "The Last of Us" has been growing in ratings with each episode, while "House of the Dragon" started to dip after episode 2, but has since bounced back. While the Game of Thrones prequels still have higher overall ratings, The Last of Us appears to have found a stronger foothold on streaming services rather than live TV, as Nielsen statistics show. Both series were critically acclaimed and brought success to HBO and HBO Max.
With four more episodes to come, The Last of Us will be a while away from full success disclose. However, if the show's first full week alone is any indication, The Last of Us could be as successful as HBO's latest crown jewel, Game of Thrones. It remains to be seen if ratings will fluctuate in the coming weeks, but with The Last of Us being renewed for season 2, it looks like the show will be a huge boon for the network.
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