Sunday Cable Ratings: 'Thrones' Notches Second-Best Viewership for S3 Finale

TNT's 'Falling Skies' returns down slightly

By Tim Baysinger -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/10/2013 2:30:26 PM

The third-season finale of HBO's Game of Thrones was the series' second most-watched episode with 5.4 million viewers at 9 p.m. on Sunday, according to Nielsen.

That was up 4% from last week's much talked about episode and a 29% improvement over last year's finale. It fell just short of the record 5.5 million that tuned in to the May 5 episode. Across two plays, Game of Thrones drew 6.3 million viewers. For the entire third season, Game of Thrones had a gross audience (linear plays, On Demand, HBO Go, DVR) of 13.6 million, up 17% over last year and now ranks as HBO's second most popular series behind The Sopranos.

Elsewhere, TNT premiered the third season of Falling Skies, down 7% from last year's debut with 4.2 million viewers, which also went up against The NBA Finals. The two-hour premiere was mostly on par with both adults 18-49 (1.9 million) and adults 25-54 (2.1 million). With adults 18-34, Falling Skies rose 24% to 772,000 viewers.