'House Of The Dragon' Soars, But Will New HBO Max Subscribers Stick Around Long Term? [Parrot Analytics]

Thursday, 1 September 2022, 6:14 am
Press Release: Parrot Analytics

House Targaryen is back on top of the TV universe.

House of the Dragon, which is already renewed for a second season and according to HBO boasted the network’s biggest ever premiere, has rocketed up the global TV demand charts. The series almost doubled its global audience demand from episode one to two, and has reinvigorated interest in the flagship Game of Thrones series.

Game of Thrones was the number one show with global audiences across all platforms, as of August 28th, drawing 119.7x more demand than the average show worldwide.

House of the Dragon was a close second at 118.2x, and will almost certainly have surpassed its predecessor for the top spot by Monday, August 29.

But a series with a budget and ambitions as high as that of House of the Dragon needs to do more than hit number one show worldwide status to maximize its value to HBO Max.

Keeping subscribers engaged with exclusive content on the same platform — thus making them more likely to convert into long term subscribers — is how entertainment companies can maximize the value of a TV series in the modern streaming era.

The real question in determining the success of this new series is: how many new HBO Max subscribers who come for House of the Dragon will stick around for other exclusive HBO Max content and become long term subscribers?

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Global demand during House of the Dragon’s second episode air date (118.2x on August 28) was up 83.8% compared to its premiere episode (64.3x on August 21).

Global demand for House of the Dragon should continue to grow week over week, and the series will likely be the first or second place TV show worldwide across all platforms throughout its first season run.

Nevertheless, House of the Dragon has a long way to go before catching the global demand peaks achieved by Game of Thrones (353.8x) in 2019, or Stranger Things earlier this summer (260.5x).

Universal Appeal

Much like Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon is proving to be a true global hit.

Since debuting, it has already become the top show across all platforms in Australia, South Africa, Norway, Portugal and New Zealand, among others.

Countries from North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America all appear in the show’s top 10 global markets when it comes to per capita demand for the series.

House of the Dragon has hit Exceptional demand (>32x more demand than the local market average) in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, and has hit Outstanding demand (8-32x local market average) in an additional 69 global markets.

Content Affinity

Both internal and third party metrics show House of the Dragon’s debut is a massive success.

But in an era of belt tightening and rethinking about high content spend, is House of the Dragon maximizing its full potential value to HBO Max?

Tracking which series viewers watched after an initial show — aka content affinity — helps answer this essential question.

During its first week of availability (August 21-27, 2022), the top 10 shows that House of the Dragon viewers turned to next were:

She-Hulk (Disney+)
Westworld (HBO/HBO Max)
What We Do In The Shadows (FX/Hulu)
Better Call Saul (AMC/Netflix)
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+)
Game of Thrones (HBO/HBO Max)
Resident Alien (SyFy/Hulu/Peacock)
For All Mankind (Apple TV+)
The Orville (Hulu)
Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

Only two of these titles are exclusively available on HBO Max (just one if you take out Game of Thrones) and more than half are available on Disney-owned streaming services.

The audience demand and content affinity data suggest House of the Dragon is clearly drawing in Game of Thrones fans and likely getting subscribers to rewatch, or start for the first time, its predecessor. This bodes very well for HBO’s desire to turn George RR Martin’s fantasy realm into a Star Wars or Marvel-esque global entertainment franchise.

However, preliminary data suggests House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones fans are not sticking around for additional exclusive HBO Max content. Remember that during the 2010s, HBO Now subscribers routinely churned following Game of Thrones season finales and wouldn't return until just before the next premiere, often over a year away. This was dubbed the “Game of Thrones Effect.”

House of the Dragon is off to a great start, but it will need to do better with content affinity for HBO Max exclusives in order to fully maximize its value to the HBO Max platform.

Parrot Analytics

Global television demand measurement

Parrot Analytics is the leading global content demand analytics company for the multi-platform TV business. With the world's largest TV audience demand datasets, the company currently tracks more than 1.5B daily expressions of demand in over 100 languages from 200+ countries to reveal the content consumers engage with and watch the most across platforms.

As a trusted partner to some of the biggest media companies and content creators in the world, Parrot Analytics optimises content workflows in real time. The company's TV analytics products result in better production, distribution, acquisition and marketing decisions, as well as accelerated SVOD platform success.