There was no real winner at the end of “Succession,” if you ask series star Matthew Macfadyen. But HBO might be able to claim that title for itself.
2.9 million people tuned into “Succession” on Sunday night, when HBO and Max debuted the series finale after four seasons. This marks the show’s largest audience ever, a 5% improvement from its previous record of 2.75 million viewers set by Episode 6 of Season 4, which aired on April 30.
Episode 10’s new series high is an unsurprising cap on what has been the most watched season of “Succession,” which is now averaging 8.7 million viewers per episode when accounting for delayed viewing. (Season 3 averaged 7.2 million viewers.) Season 4 opened with a then-series high of 2.3 million viewers, up 33% from the Season 3 finale’s 1.7 million. Episode 2 was watched by 2 million, followed by 2.5 million with Episode 3, 2.6 million with Episode 4 and and 2.6 million again with Episode 5. PvNew understands that after hitting 2.75 million with Episode 6, viewership remained mostly steady through Episode 9.
These figured are reported by HBO parent company Warner Bros. Discovery and represent a combination of Nielsen’s measurement of linear viewers on HBO’s cable channel plus WBD’s own data regarding streams on Max.
“Succession” wasn’t the only HBO series to end its run on Sunday night. “Barry” drew in 700,000 viewers with its series finale, which debuted immediately following the “Succession” finale.
“Barry” wasn’t able to reach any series highs throughout the run of its fourth season — though it should be noted that setting a new record would have been a difficult feat, since the previous series high was set in 2019 and benefitted from lead-in from the series finale of “Game of Thrones,” HBO’s most watched show of all time.
Season 4 opened with two episodes: Episode 1 reached 710,000 viewers and Episode 2 reached 550,000. Episode 3 was watched by 660,000 before the season hit its high of 779,000 viewers with Episode 4. Data regarding viewership of Episodes 5 through 7 is unavailable.
When accounting for delayed viewing, WBD reports that “Barry” is averaging 3.4 million viewers across episodes of Season 4, and that viewership of the final episode the day after its debut was 20% more than usual.
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