The heavier than usual social media chatter around Sunday night’s Succession carried through to the show’s actual TV audience.
The HBO series delivered its biggest first-night audience ever for an episode that featured the shocking, if perhaps inevitable, death of a main character (heavy spoilers at both of those links). The episode brought in 2.5 million viewers across all platforms, topping the previous night-one high of 2.3 million for the season four premiere on March 26.
Sunday’s episode also had a 22 percent jump in viewers week-to-week, growing from 2 million viewers for the season’s second installment (all figures are based on Nielsen and internal HBO data). The season’s first two episodes have averaged 540,000 viewers for their initial airings on HBO’s cable channel, accounting for about 25 percent of the first-night total. The rest comes from streaming on HBO Max and on-air replays later in the night.
Sunday’s episode was in line with that split, as the first airing on HBO drew 609,000 viewers — a little more than 24 percent of the 2.5 million across all platforms for the night.
HBO also says the season premiere of Succession has climbed to 7 million viewers in the three weeks since it debuted. The show’s third season averaged 7.2 million viewers per episode; HBO measures season averages of all episodes for 90 days after the season premiere.
April 11, 8:55 a.m. Updated with on-air ratings for Succession.
