‘House of the Dragon’ has fire-breathing debut on HBO

The premiere of the “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” averaged a combined 9.986 million viewers Sunday on HBO and HBO Max, the most for a series premiere on HBO, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by the streaming service and Nielsen.

That figure will grow, as Sunday night viewership for an HBO series represents 20% to 40% of a show’s total audience, according to HBO.

“The Sandman” was Netflix’s most-streamed program for the second time in its two full weeks of release, with viewers spending 77.24 million hours watching the 10 episodes of the fantasy drama between Aug. 15 and Sunday, according to figures released Tuesday by the streaming service.

Viewership was down 39.4% from the 127.5 million hours watched the previous week.

“Day Shift” was Netflix’s top-ranked film for the second time in its two weeks of release, with viewers watching the vampire action comedy for 63.39 million hours, 12.2% more than the 56.15 million hours the previous week when it was available for three days.

Episodes of “America’s Got Talent” and “Password,” which follows it on NBC, accounted for four of the top nine programs on broadcast or cable programs. The 121-minute “America’s Got Talent” episode on Tuesday, Aug. 16, averaged 6.437 million viewers to finish first for the fourth consecutive week and sixth time in eight weeks.

The Tuesday “Password” episode averaged 3.971 million viewers, ninth for the week and first among programs beginning at 10 p.m. or later.

The 61-minute “America’s Got Talent” Wednesday episode was second, averaging 5.642 million viewers. The Wednesday “Password” episode was fifth, averaging 4.361 million.

The only other broadcast or cable program to average more than 5 million viewers was the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” which averaged 5.441 million viewers for an edition with three previously aired segments that were updated for Sunday’s broadcast.

CBS won the network race after back-to-back second-place finishes behind NBC, averaging 2.83 million viewers, with “60 Minutes,” three episodes of “Big Brother” and a rerun of “FBI” all finishing among the week’s 14 most-watched programs.

NBC averaged 2.68 million viewers and ABC 2.42 million viewers.

“Celebrity Family Feud” was ABC’s ratings leader for the eighth time in the eight weeks since the conclusion of the network’s coverage of the Stanley Cup Final, averaging 4.541 million viewers, fourth for the week.

Sunday’s first episode matched teams led by Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater Nathan Chen and actor Simu Liu, while Grammy-winning R&B singer Monica and rapper-producer-record executive Jermaine Dupri led the teams for the second game.

Fox averaged 1.89 million viewers. Its most-watched program was Sunday’s Arizona-Baltimore NFL preseason game, 21st overall and first among prime-time sporting events, averaging 3.217 million viewers.

The CW averaged 340,000 viewers. Its biggest draw was last Tuesday’s premiere of the historical drama about Leonardo da Vinci, “Leonardo,” which averaged 543,000 viewers, 172nd among broadcast programs. Its overall ranking was not available.

ABC finished third among the broadcast networks, averaging 2.45 million viewers.

The top 20 prime-time programs consisted of two episodes each of “America’s Got Talent” and “Password”; “60 Minutes”; four ABC game shows — an original episode and a rerun of “Celebrity Family Feud” and original episodes of “The $100,000 Pyramid” and “Press Your Luck”; the ABC alternative series “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “The Bachelorette”; three episodes of the CBS alternative series “Big Brother”; reruns of CBS’ “FBI,” “FBI: International” and “Young Sheldon”; and three editions of the Fox News Channel political talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Fox News Channel had each of the top eight prime-time cable programs and 10 of the top 11 to win the prime-time cable network race for the 11th consecutive week, averaging 2.31 million viewers.

MSNBC was second, averaging 1.319 million viewers, and ESPN third, averaging 896,000.

The Aug. 15 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the top-ranked prime-time cable program, averaging 3.432 million viewers, 12th overall.

The cable top 20 consisted of 14 Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows — five broadcasts each of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” and four of “The Ingraham Angle” — and its Sunday political talk show “Life, Liberty & Levin”; the Aug. 15 edition of the MSNBC news and opinion program “The Rachel Maddow Show”; ESPN’s coverage of the Chicago Bears-Seattle Seahawks NFL preseason game; HBO’s “House of the Dragon”; and the 8-9 p.m. and 9-10 p.m. segments of USA Network’s professional wrestling program, “WWE Raw.”