HBO’s sci-fi drama “Westworld” returned on Sunday night for a third season, pulling in 901,000 total viewers to the live broadcast – a 57% dip from the 2.1 million who watched the second season premiere and the show’s lowest viewership tally to date.
The episode pulled in a total of 1.7 million viewers across HBO’s platforms (incl. digital viewers) – split almost 50-50 between live and streaming. It may have been soft but it’s still one of HBO’s strongest this season – better than “Watchman by 13% and “The Outsider” by 24%.
The low numbers, however, have an obvious cause in part – the episode bumping up against the Democratic debate which included discussion of the coronavirus pandemic. That CNN debate was watched by 10.8 million viewers.
It is expected the series will get a boost by the fact that many Americans are staying at home for the next few weeks because of COVID-19. The second season averaged 9.2 million viewers across all platforms, while the first snagged 13.2 million viewers.
Source: Variety
