The year of our Lord 2020 will forever be known as the year where we all spent way too much time watching TV. Be it streaming, Blu-ray, or cable, we all honestly have little better to do than just lounge about and catch up on our stories. And it looks like that’s exactly what people are doing. Companies are already starting to report that viewership is up, and the latest comes from HBO Now.

According to the streamer, viewership was up a whopping 40% from its previous four-week average. This is the highest since last summer when their juggernaut Game of Thrones wrapped up its eight-season. Even more specifically, binges of HBO series have increased 65% compared to the prior four-week average. That means 65% more viewers watched at least three or more episodes of a series daily than the weeks before.

Unsurprisingly, HBO is expecting to see “elevated traffic” in the weeks to come as people ride out the COVID-19 virus in their homes. Westworld Season 3 is the No. 1 show on HBO Now so far, but what I think is pretty cool is their back catalog getting some love. Gaining over 50% viewership are Big Little Lies,  Chernobyl, Game of Thrones, and His Dark Materials.

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I’m very excited to hear about that last one. Us here at LRM Online are huge fans of His Dark Materials and any chance we can get to actually see this entire series get adapted I’m all for. We’ve already experienced the pain of only one book getting adapted with The Golden Compass and would prefer to see this story get told in its entirety.

Anyway, movies have also seen a 70% increase in viewership, so it’s not just TV that’s getting all the love. It’ll be interesting to see just how high these numbers get. While it is sad to see the industry sort of collapsing in some respects, this does give opportunity for growth in streaming.

What do you think of HBO’s latest numbers? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Variety