By Andrew Dalton, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --HBO’s “Game of Thrones” has once again ridden a high body count to a record viewer count.
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, the Nielsen company said.
That made it the week’s most-watched show cable or broadcast and the most-watched one-day event ever in HBO’s four decades of existence, topping the “Game of Thrones” season eight premiere, which had 17.4 million viewers two weeks earlier.
The episode known as “The Long Night” was the longest in series history at 1 hour, 22 minutes. It featured a battle between the living and the dead — teased and anticipated since season one — that had a sky-high casualty count even for the famously bloody fantasy series.
Some 12.02 million people watched the episode live, a figure eclipsed only by the season seven finale.
The May 19 series finale is expected to break both records.
The numbers for Sunday’s episode are likely to grow considerably after delayed and repeat viewings. HBO said 38 million people have now watched the season eight premiere.
CBS shows dominated the rest of the week’s top 10, with “The Big Bang Theory” second, “Young Sheldon” third and “60 Minutes” fourth. That helped it win the week overall in prime time, averaging 4.4 million viewers. NBC had 3.4 million viewers, ABC had 3 million, Fox had 2 million, ION Television had 1.1 million, Telemundo had 1 million, Univision had 880,000, and the CW had 680,000.
Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.27 million viewers in prime time. TNT had 2 million, ESPN had 1.6 million, MSNBC had 1.58 million and HGTV had 1.2 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.5 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.7 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.6 million viewers.
Below are primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for April 8-14. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.
1. “Game of Thrones,” HBO, 12.02 million.
2. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 11.85 million.
3. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 10.49 million.
4. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 9.27 million.
5. “American Idol,” ABC, 8.74 million.
6. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 8.11 million.
7. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.89 million.
8. “Mom,” CBS, 7.85 million.
9. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 7.78 million.
10. “The Voice,” NBC, 7.6 million.
11. “Survivor,” CBS, 7.51 million.
12. “NCIS,” CBS, 7.45 million.
13. “Chicago P.D.,” NBC, 6.99 million.
14. “Hawaii Five-0,” CBS, 6.62 million.
15. “NCIS,” (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), 6.52 CBS, million.
16. “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 6.47 million.
17. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.32 million.
18. “The Neighborhood,” CBS, 6.28 million.
19. “911,” Fox, 6 million.
20. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 5.66 million.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.; CBS is a division of CBS Corp.; Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox; NBC is owned by NBC Universal.
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More