In the heat of summer, all that hype about winter coming really paid off.
HBO announced Tuesday that the season 7 premiere for “Game of Thrones” shattered previous records for the network, including those related to streaming and Twitter mentions.
Variety reports that the episode drew 16.1 million total viewers, with 10.1 million on the linear channel and the rest on DVR and streaming. It was the highest number of concurrent viewers across the streaming services HBO Go and HBO Now. And, with a 50-percent jump over last season’s premiere, it was the most-watched season premiere ever for an HBO series.
The episode, packed with key characters setting up the season’s storylines accordingly, was also the most-tweeted episode ever, with over 2.4 million tweets. Action involving Arya Stark drew the most attention on Twitter. But the cameo appearance of singer Ed Sheeran as a soldier drew negative reaction on the social site, according to Variety.
Apparently Sheeran, who hasn’t always been a fan of the treatment he gets on Twitter, deleted his account sometime Monday. But the A.V. Club reports that it’s back and millions are already following the “Shape of You” singer again. Over on Instagram, Sheeran has more than 1,000 posts, including a couple from “Game of Thrones.”
