On Sunday night, Game of Thrones set a ratings record.
With 10.1 million viewers tuning in for the original broadcast, “Dragonstone” became the most-watched season premiere in the history of HBO.
Heck, it even shattered the mark for the highest number of concurrent viewers on HBO Go and HBO Now.
This doesn’t really come as a shock, of course. We all know Game of Thrones is a big deal in pop culture.
But the above records only tell a small part of how popular Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 1 turned out to be.
For further, truly insightful analysis, we turn to the good folks at… Porn Hub?!?
Apparently!
The website has kept a running tally for years on the effect Game of Thrones episodes have on its traffic… and it just released a chart that depicts how viewership dropped 4.5% this past Sunday night when compared to typical Sunday nights on Porn Hub.
As you can see below, this is usually a popular evening for men (or women!) to log online and ogle some bare butts, boobs, penises or vaginas.
They may even masturbate to these body parts and/or to what these body parts are doing to each other.
But Game of Thrones has been known to feature its own fair share of boobs and butts.
Moreover, there are dragons!
And White Walkers!
And palace intrigue, murderous young members of the Stark family and even Ed Sheerhan!
This season’s opener provided a slightly more significant drop than last year’s premiere, when traffic was down only 4.1 percent.
However, if last season is any indication, every Sunday night will see a dip going forward, as the following Porn Hub chart illustrates:
Following a Game 6 finale in which hundreds of people died and Cersei took over the Iron Throne, the Game of Thrones Season 7 premiere was pretty tame.
But it did move various characters in various players, setting up clear battle lines and setting the stage for two major battles to come:
- Dany and company against Cersei and company.
- Everyone against The Night King.
Both of these storylines are interesting enough that people around the Internet would prefer to see how they play out instead of seeing how porn stars online scream out in ecstasy.
Winter is coming, indeed, but no one else is on Sunday nights.
