It seems like the series of the moment is HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl and if digital viewing is any indication, a lot of people are discovering the much talked about global sensation.
Chernobyl has seen an almost uninterrupted viewership climb from its May 6 debut to its June 3 finale and has emerged with a cumulative audience of 8 million so far. For comparison’s sake, that’s better than the 7.3 million cumulative viewership that the Amy Adams-led Sharp Objects scored over its eight-episode run last summer. The miniseries is still a bit behind the 8.5 million that the seven episodes of the first season of Big Little Lies earned in 2017 but what makes Chernobyl’s performance more impressive is that it aired on HBO’s relatively new expansion territory of Mondays which was previously a dumping ground for subpar HBO endeavors. The other shows airs on the more prominent Sunday night, where HBO typically shines.
Breaking down Chernobyl’s numbers, they come out as 35% linear, 13% OD and a massive 52% from HBO Go, HBO Now and other OTT platforms. The latter result is where Chernobyl also shows great success as it is a record breaker on the digital platform. No other HBO series has ever topped 50% in its digital contribution. The previous record holder was Game of Thrones but that series never made it over 46%, even during its recent eighth and final season.
Chernobyl, which depicts the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 1986 and the unprecedented cleanup efforts that followed, has been in the headlines quite a bit recently. The miniseries became the highest rated TV show on IMDB with a solid 9.7 out of 10 on the platform.
