HBO’s penultimate episode 8 of The last of us delivered 8.1 million viewers across HBO Max and linear TV shows on Sunday night. That’s a 74% jump from the series debut night in January and sets a new series high ahead of next Sunday’s season finale, per Nielsen and HBO.
The last of us was also the eighth consecutive week of the top titles overall on HBO Max, with all episodes ranking in the top 10 for each asset of the week. According to HBO, the average viewership for the first five episodes of the series is now approaching 30 million viewers across all platforms.
The series, based on the PlayStation game, takes place 20 years after the destruction of modern civilization. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of a oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon turns into a brutal journey as both must cross the United States and rely on each other for survival.
This is the first time HBO has released updated viewership statistics in about a month The last of us. By this time, the series had peaked at 7.5 million viewers on the same day. Episode 5 debuted early on HBO Max to avoid competing with the Super Bowl, so same-day numbers would not have been accurate.
According to the Nielsen streaming charts The last of us reached a milestone the week Episode 5 debuted. The series streamed for more than 1 billion minutes in the week of January 30-February 5, which included just a few hours of Episode 5 availability. That doesn’t include linear play on HBO. Nielsen also doesn’t break down viewership numbers by episode.
It stars Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman, as well as Melanie Lynskey, Storm Reid, Merle Dandridge, Jeffrey Pierce, Lamar Johnson, Keivonn Woodard, Graham Greene, Elaine Miles and Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker.
The last of us Written and performed by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. It is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television along with PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint and Naughty Dog. Carolyn Strauss, Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan and Rose Lam are also producing.