When we reported last week that “The Last Of Us” got off to a strong start with 4.7 million viewers on US prestige channel HBO and its streaming service HBO Max (surpassed only by the Game Of Thrones prequel in the last 12 years). House Of The Dragon), of course, there was also the question of whether the video game adaptation could maintain those numbers for the rest of the nine-part first season. After all, it’s quite normal for a lot of curious people to tune in at the start of a series, but some jump right back out once Episode 2 rolls around.
In the case of “The Last Of Us”, the question asked can now be answered in the affirmative, at least as far as the second episode is concerned – although that almost falls short. Because “The Last Of Us” with episode 2 on the first day of broadcast not only managed to maintain the ratings, but even increased them againUS trade journals report, citing official information from HBO parent company Warner and the quota survey company Nielsen.
increase of more than 20 percent
After a whopping 4.7 million people in the US tuned in to the premiere of the series last week, there were a whopping 5.7 million people a week later. In fact, with a 22 percent increase, ‘The Last Of Us’ registered the largest increase from the first to the second episode of an HBO drama series in the channel’s history. Even the fantasy hit “House Of The Dragon” got “only” two percent here (although the viewership was actually a lot higher).
If you look at the total numbers for episode 1 (and not just the numbers mentioned on the day of the premiere), then this record is not so crazy anymore. If you count the people who only watched the prelude to ‘Last Of Us’ during the week, the debut episode now has about 18 million viewers (nearly four times as many as the day it started).
And some of the latecomers must have been there when the new episode first aired this time around. Not to mention that the many positive votes on the series should have attracted more attention.
You Can’t Get Past “House Of The Dragon”
Even if “The Last Of Us” could even eclipse “House Of The Dragon” in terms of percentage increase: in terms of total numbers, the fantasy phenomenon with the “Game Of Thrones” brand behind it is clearly ahead. With nearly 10 million viewers already at launch, the spin-off holds the record for the best HBO series launch ever. After a week, episode 1 had a whopping 25 million viewers.
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But that doesn’t change the fact that “The Last Of Us” is also a huge success (which also clearly surpassed the third current HBO hype “Euphoria”). Now it gets all the more exciting to see how many people will continue to accompany Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey)’s journey through the mushroom post-apocalypse in the coming weeks and what heights are still possible.
New episodes of “The Last Of Us” always appear in Germany on Monday mornings on the Sky streaming service WOW (which has not yet provided access numbers). It will continue with episode 3 on January 30, 2023, of which you can get a preview in the following article: