HBO’s “Game of Thrones” has once again ridden a high body count to a record viewer count.
The Nielsen company says Sunday’s big-battle episode, the third of the final season, drew 17.8 million viewers either live on the network at 9 p.m., streamed, on-demand or in a rerun that aired later that night.
That made it the week’s most-watched show cable or broadcast and the most-watched episode ever of an HBO show, topping the “Thrones” season eight premiere.
The episode featured a long-anticipated battle between the living and the dead that had a sky-high casualty count even for the famously bloody fantasy series.
The May 19 series finale is likely to break records.
CBS dominated the rest of the ratings, with five of the week’s top 10 shows.