SANTA MONICA, Calif. — After a 20-month absence, “Game of Thrones” stormed back on Sunday night, setting a new ratings record. The season premiere of the show’s eighth — and final — season had 17.4 million viewers, including viewership through its digital channels, HBO said. The previous record for a single episode of the series was 16.9 million, for the seventh-season finale in August 2017. HBO had 11.8 million viewers watching it the old-fashioned way on regular television, according to Nielsen. That narrowly missed the record of 12.1 million who watched the seventh-season finale on television.

Source: New York Times April 15, 2019 20:24 UTC