The good old days are right now at HBO where True Blood set another series high on Sunday with 4.3 (actually 4.272 for those who are counting) million viewers — it was a cram-packed episode too, next week could see, well, another series record.
Please note that HBO had been commonly tossing around a cumulative number that includes multiple airing of the episodes, but the 4.3 number is only for the initial airing at 9pm on Sunday.
James Hibberd reports that Hung (3.4 million) and Entourage (3.3 million) had their second-best numbers this season. Since all three shows have already been renewed, there’s no need to get hung up on the numbers, but it’s still pretty good times for HBO. True Blood’s season 1 DVD — which fell out of the weekly top 30 DVD sales for the first time since its released is still the top selling TV show DVD (by far) in 2009 and has sold nearly 1.2 million units and racked up almost $41 million in sales.
Coupled with the possibility that True Blood could set new series highs each week through the season two finale, and decent numbers for Hung and Entourage, “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO” means something again.
Last week’s True Blood deserved its record breaking performance. So much crammed into it, it was definitely the best ever in the series. And like you said, it’s only going to get better.
For those who didn’t see the trailer shown at Comic-Con, here is it.
http://tvdonewright.com/2009/07/comic-con-2009-true-blood-trailer-full-season-2/
Entourage is bad compared to years ago?
are these the best ratings for it ever?
didnt it get 1.6-1.8 mil last year
Chris, last year (season five) was really bad for Entourage in terms of viewer averages so these numbers are *much better*, but these aren’t series high numbers. Unfortunately I don’t have any numbers for the first few seasons handy…
Mmm, Anna Paquin.
And woo hoo for the numbers! We’re back to the season one pace of 300k new viewers a week. At that pace, the season finale will be close to 6 million. (5 more episodes.)
This is the first season I watch of Entourage…and I don’t know about it. Yes, it’s funny, and Jeremy Piven alone makes it worth watching.
But there’s something about it… maybe it’s the lack of drama/conflict. I mean, does anyone REALLY have it as good as those 4 guys.
And the Dillon guy is a douche.
True Blood deserves all the success it’s getting. This week’s episode was mindblowingly good.
So top 10 cable. Its hangers-on on Sunday didn’t make top 20. Can anyone remember how many weeks it’s been in cable top 20 now after years of non-HBO’d top 20’s?
Good to see True Blood, Hung and Entourage do well although I think it would wise for HBO to end Entourage after the next season as it’s run its course. I think Curb will probably end in the next two years unless Larry David wants to match the number of seasons that Seinfeld did.
BTW, would this make True Blood the 3rd-highest-rated HBO show ever? The only HBO shows I really know that ended before 08 are Sex & Sopranos, which as they ended with 11 & 12 million must be the top 2. And since True Blood is touted as the biggest thing since Sopranos ended, clearly nothing in 08/09 has been as big.
I’d like to see comparisons with even that which is not technically “series” programming; Angels in America started with over 4 million, Band of Brothers with 10 million. I wonder if a spreadsheet or list is floating anywhere.
I’ve complained a lot about True Blood, saying it’s a decent show but not the quality of past shows (Deadwood, Sopranos, and I even loved John From Cincinnati)…
But I’ll admit… the past 2 episodes have been amazing, so much going on at once, and leaving so many threads open at the end of each episode.
Entourage has been great all season. It’s about time that great things are happening across the board. The past few seasons, the guys kept getting hit while down and it didn’t feel as good to watch (tho it was obviously still a great show). Watching it now… you just get a high from it. It feels good.
Hung… sucks.
to j:
Big Love was gaining a lot of steam going into it’s past season finale. It started out poorly but kept on building to like 3 million i think for the season finale. I’m not sure on that number exactly but I DO know that from season premiere to season finale its audience grew over 100%. So that was another HBO victory as well
The show just has so much momentum, each episode moves at such a fast pace, it reminds me of the first season of Damages. There’s an urgency to see each new episode because so much is happening in 50 minutes.
Big fan of HUNG, really love it so I’m happy it’s doing well still. Entourage…Is that still on? Never really liked the people on that show. Don’t watch True Blood either. Can’t really understand the vampire thing, not just this show, but in any form. I just don’t get it. I seem to end up laughing. That picture at the top of the page makes me laugh a bit even. I think it’s the way the guy got his pie hole dragging the ground to show you he has fangs!!!! SCARY!!! Still, it’s got a load of fans so I’m glad it’s working out for them. Guess HBO is doing it right again after the slump.
What’s most interesting is that it’s a serial. Serialized shows have seriously fallen out of fashion, but True Blood is doing well for HBO. I’d hope that it would make the other networks realize that it’s not the format (serialized vs. non), but the quality that matters. A good show will be successful regardless.
Not that the message will be received, I’m sure.
considering Sookie get to “Getting closer” to Eric in the next few episodes the ratings have no where to go but up they seriously need to kill off Bill and center on Eric more
Congrats to True Blood!
I got HBO when they said last year they were going to give True Blood a second season. I was one of those Moonlight viewers burnt by the way CBS canceled the show after saying it was coming back…So now I am totally happy with these news about the show sucess , I am loving True Blood , I bought the DVD too. HBO gave the Vamp show and its viewers a change and now they are getting the results…Truth is that now I watch HBO a lot…So happy for True Blood and HBO. They deserve the sucess. Congratulations!!!
This show was good from day one and Stephen Moyer as Bill is one of the main reasons why. Then when you add all the other good actors on the show including Sam, Rutina, Ryan and (Shake it Baby!) Nelsan; mix in a brilliant writer/producer Alan Ball; add his wonderful staff and BAM there it is, some of the best TV ever.
I love this site, I come here for the numbers every week!
I’m confused by one thing, if all the other ratings included the second Sunday showing and this one didn’t.. are they saying this week the first viewing went up by 30%???
I have to ask, do you and Ausiello have a contest over who will think of a best (worst) pun for a true blood ratings post title?
I’m glad to see Entourage doing better, it’s one of my favourite shows.
Pix, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Ausiello didn’t know (or care) if our web site existed. I do check out his posts, but with Bill on vacation and all the ratings today I’m way, way behind in my blog reading…so it was likely just the Tru*Blood that inspired the bad punage on both our parts
At this rate the season finale will have over 5 million viewers.
Does any one know what is the most rated episode of a HBO series besides Sex and the City and Sopranos? I remember that Entourage was once a 4 million series and Big Love’s premiere was around 4.5 million.
Tom, I tried to find the audience levels for HBO shows a while back, with very limited success. The biggest audience I could find for Entourage was the Season 2 premiere, with 2.7 million. Big Love Season 1 premiere was at 4.6 million. John from Cincinnati actually premiered to 3.4 million, but mainly because it was following the Sopranos’ finale (11.9 million).
http://betweenthescreens.com/2009/06/hbos-rising-tide/
Do ratings really matter for HBO? I mean they don’t make money from ads do they? They make it from subscriptions. Theoretically a popular show like TB could increase the amount of people subscribing but not necessarily since we’re in a recession.
Vetinari, ratings certainly don’t matter to HBO in the way they do for advertising supported networks. But there is still some kind of correlation (though how much exactly, I couldn’t guess) between # of subscribers and how much they like the content offerings. it might not make a difference to HBO whether True Blood has 3 million viewers or 5 million viewers, but if it had 500,000 viewers it would matter…
Entertainment is somewhat recession-proof. Many thought premium cable would suffer due to the economy, but it hasn’t. And True Blood’s season 1 DVD has sold almost 1.2 million units and made over $40 million in revenue — it’s the #1 TV show DVD so far this year by a huge margin and on a revenue basis the 15th best selling DVD overall (movies & TV).
Another bad pun for next week: 4.x Million Lookies for Sookie!
Big True Blood news today – Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer are engaged to be married.
It kinda angers me that entourage and hung are getting ratings only cause of True Blood, When True Blood Season 2 ends, We’ll see how they do by there selves…I freakin Love true blood and am soooooo proud of there super sucess!!
AmazingBlood, I’d be glad at the high ratings for the other HBO shows. A diversified entertainment offering = lots of viewers who are interested in, say, Hung, and sit through True Blood to get to it. They wouldn’t have given TB a shot but they get hooked waiting for Hung.