Sky Atlantic's 2am simulcast of the Game of Thrones series four premiere for hardcore fans averaged 9,000 viewers, while more than 1 million watched the episode in the UK across two broadcasts or via Sky+ recording on Monday.
In the US, the Game of Thrones premiere attracted HBO's biggest audience since The Sopranos finale in 2007, with 6.6 million for the initial 9pm transmission, and another 1.6 million for an 11pm repeat.
In the UK, BSkyB – which rebranded its Sky Atlantic channel as the Home of Thrones to hype the launch of the eagerly-anticipated fourth series – struck a deal to broadcast the premiere at the same time as HBO's first airing to audiences on the east coast of the US.
When timeshifted viewing – by those who recorded the episode on their Sky+ digital video recorder and watched later in the day – is include, the 2am broadcast airing drew an average audience of 538,000.
An average of 675,000 watched at 9pm on Monday night – or recorded and watched it before 2am on Tuesday morning – the regular Game of Thrones slot for the rest of the series, giving Sky Atlantic a first-day total audience of 1.21m.
While the 9pm audience was below both the series one premiere (743,000) and series three launch (710,000), across the day, Game of Thrones appears to have been easily the most popular to date.
It can be assumed that the vast number of those who chose to record the 2am session and watch later – 529,000 – would have tuned in for the live 9pm airing instead if it was the only slot of the day the show was airing.
This would have comfortably seen live TV viewing rise above 1 million.
Such was the popularity of the return of one of the biggest shows on TV, US broadcaster HBO's streaming service, HBO Go, crashed due to "overwhelming demand".
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