The numbers may be astounding but pale when compared to HBO Max’s House of the Dragon. Based on the data, House of the Dragon was streamed 4.8 million times in the first four days. On the Sunday night premiere of the series, viewership was already at 2.6 million.
— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) September 6, 2022 Having 4.8 million in the first four days places House of the Dragon firmly in the first place as it beat out Stranger Things 4 as the most watched series premiere of 2022. The Netflix series was streamed 2.9 million times in the first four days. This is nearly a million more than Disney’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, which placed third, and is close to doubling the viewership of the Rings of Power.
A discrepancy in Samba TV’s numbers
According to several sources, Samba TV’s real-time TV viewership data are gathered only from Smart TVs that have a Samba TV chip installed. There are only 28 million Smart TVs in the US that use the Samba chip to track data. Streamers watch from multiple devices. This might explain the huge gap between the numbers given by the independent researcher versus the streaming services. While the data given by Samba TV only shows small sample size, it will still be interesting to see which TV show comes out on top at the season’s end. As a fan, it doesn’t matter which one is ahead as long as the shows continue to give us quality content as they try to outdo each other in the TV ratings. Ultimately it will be the fans that win in this rivalry. Rings of Power and House of the Dragon have both been renewed for a second season. House of the Dragon streams every Sunday at 9 PM EST on HBO Max. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power drops a new episode every Friday at midnight EST.
