Streaming users spent a lot of time with the Game of Thrones universe in the week following House of the Dragon’s premiere — but more with the parent series than the prequel.Game of Thrones topped the acquired series chart — and ranked third among all titles — for the week of Aug. 22-28 with 909 million minutes of viewing time on HBO Max. House of the Dragon followed its premiere night blast of 327 million minutes of viewing with 741 million for the full week, with most of that by necessity being catch-up on the first episode. Nielsen’s streaming rankings measure a week from Monday to Sunday, meaning only a few hours’ worth of streaming of the second episode Aug. 28 are part of the total.Still, House of the Dragon is the first currently running show ever to make the acquired series chart in the two-plus years of Nielsen’s streaming rankings. (It’s “acquired” because Nielsen considers the HBO cable channel the home base for HotD, though both it and HBO Max are part of Warner Bros. Discovery.) It also made the chart with only two episodes under its belt; other than preschool show Cocomelon (18 episodes), every other series in the aquired show top 10 has at least 62 episodes.Netflix’s Echoes topped both the overall rankings and the original series chart for the week with 1.12 billion minutes of viewing. The thriller stars Michelle Monaghan, playing identical twins who regularly swap lives — until one of them goes missing. Disney+’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law entered the chart in its second week of release, ranking ninth among originals with 390 million minutes. Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building (578 million minutes) improved by 39 percent in the week of its second-season finale.Nielsen’s streaming ratings cover viewing on TV sets only and don’t include minutes watched on computers or mobile devices. The ratings only measure U.S. audiences, not those in other countries, and currently only include Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix and Prime Video.
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