According to Nielsen estimates, an average audience of 4.1 million tuned in for the 9 p.m. telecast — on par with last year’s finale (4.14 million) and a bit above its seventh and final-season opener in June (4.03 million).
Add in a quickie repeat at 11:30 p.m., and the nightly audience for “True Blood” reached 4.5 million. The final season of the show averaged a gross audience of 9.4 million viewers across platforms, according to HBO.
“True Blood” was HBO’s most popular series from 2009 through 2012, peaking with a “live plus same-day” average of 5.16 million viewers during its fourth season, in 2011. Prior to Sunday’s finale, its first nine episodes of the final season had averaged 3.42 million.
For this summer, “True Blood” is television’s second most popular scripted series among young adults, according to Nielsen’s “most current” averages, behind CBS’ “Under the Dome.”
Below are the top 5 cable shows for adults 25-54 for the whole day.
Selected Sunday Cable Ratings for August 17, 2014:
Show Net Time Viewership (000s, Live+SD) Adults 18-49 rating (Live+SD)
2014 VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS MTV 9:00 PM 8.257 4.2
True Blood HBOM 9:03 PM 4.036 2.1
2014 VMA PRESHOW MTV 8:00 PM 3.778 1.9
BREAK HBOM 10:06 PM 2.819 1.4
BREAK HBOM 8:59 PM 2.724 1.3
True Blood was one of the highest rated on Twitter on Sunday night, too, as noted below:
True Blood (HBO, Sun.) | Tweets: 100,000 | Unique audience: 1,373,000
sources: tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com, variety.com and usatoday.com