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Game of Thrones breaks Foxtel records for subscription and streaming audiences

Game of Thrones has paid dividends for Foxtel with the finale attracting the subscription TV operator’s largest ever audience for a single show.

Excluding Game of Thrones episodes, the previous highest rating Foxtel show was the 2011 Rugby World Cup semi final between Australia and New Zealand which attracted 719,000 viewers.


The series’ final episode delivered an overnight linear audience across all airings of 1.076 million viewers, the largest overnight audience in Australian subscription TV history. The audience was 21% higher on 2017’s season seven finale and 6% better than the previous record holder, episode 3 of the current series which had 1.011 million viewers.

Online, Game of Thrones’ series final also brought a total premiere day audience of 471,000 viewers who streamed it live or On Demand across Foxtel Now and Foxtel GO. The On Demand VPM of 432,000 is the largest single day On Demand VPM rating in Australian TV history.

The highest rating free to air show last night was Seven’s 6pm news which pulled a national audience of 1.78m of which 1.16m were metro viewers. Nine’s The Voice, the best rating FTA non-news show, attracted audiences of 1.32m and 963,000 respectively.

Foxtel claims the show has pulling in a cumulative linear average audience of 1.413 million viewers per episode across the first four episodes of the current series.

In April, the premiere of the current and final season dominated Foxtel’s ratings with over a million viewers tuning in.

Game of Thrones’ success comes at a critical time for Foxtel as the network looks to bolster subscriber numbers and revenues in the face of a declining market, with the company telling investors last week it is currently reviewing prices various programming packages and at cutting ‘non-marquee’ sports coverage.

In response to Game of Thrones’ success, Foxtel has offered some Foxtel Now customers discounted offers on continued subscriptions.

A Foxtel spokesperson said: “We’re proud to have had the privilege of bringing our customers one of the greatest TV events of all time and are equally thrilled with the subscription response to Foxtel Now that came with the lead up to Game of Thrones.

“The finale has set the stage for an incredible slate of drama set to continue on Foxtel including the seventh season of our acclaimed prison drama, Wentworth; the highly anticipated second season of HBO’s Big Little Lies and the upcoming new Foxtel Original, Lambs of God. As part of this upcoming season of drama, we are sending a select group of customers a special offer to keep their subscriptions open so they can continue to enjoy a host of new drama and movies.”

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