The first episode of the seventh season of Game of Thrones has continued its unprecedented run by recording the biggest consolidated audience for a programme ever on Sky with 4.7 million.

The episode. entitled Dragonstone, almost doubled its audience in the week after it launched, adding an additional 1.85 million to the original 2.8 million who watched it on July 17th. This stand out performance also meant the episode secured the fifth biggest programme audience of the year in Sky homes, outperforming Sherlock, Call the Midwife and Line of Duty.

The 4.7 million figure is made up of those who watched the 2am simulcast (live or on demand) or the 9pm transmission on July 17th, those who have chosen to catch up over the past seven days through on demand on Sky Atlantic or online streaming service NOW TV, and customers who recorded the episode and watched it back. A further 729,000 downloads and streams of the episode were made via the Sky Go app, with this expected to increase further over the coming weeks. Sky Atlantic has seen a huge increase in Game of Thrones audiences year on year with a 31 per cent increase on the opening episode of season six last year (3.56 million consolidated).

Gary Davey, managing director content, Sky commented: “The Game of Thrones phenomenon is incredible. It just gets bigger and better every year which is reflected in the huge number of people tuning in. Once again viewers have taken advantage of being able to enjoy the show in the way that suits them, whether that’s staying up till 2am to watch it live or catching up in their own time. For me, it has to be first thing in the morning before work – I’m too impatient to wait to the end of the day to find out what’s happened.”

Excitement and enthusiasm for the series continues with 2,153,000 viewers tuning in for the second episode on July 23rd.

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