"Game of Thrones" beats Nielsen's audience record with "The Long Night"

LOS ANGELES – HBO's "Game of Thrones" once again broke the body record for a record number of spectators.

The big episode of Sunday's battle, the third of last season, attracted 17.8 million viewers either live on the network at 9pm, streaming, on demand or during a replay broadcast later in the night, announced the company Nielsen.

That's how the week's most watched TV show on cable TV and the most-watched show of all time over the four decades of HBO's existence surpassed the premiere of the Season 8 of Game of Thrones, which had attracted 17.4 million viewers two weeks earlier.

The episode known as "The Long Night" was the longest in the history of the series, with one hour and 22 minutes. It was a battle between the living and the dead – teased and expected since the first season – which counted an unprecedented number of victims, even for the famous spooky bloody series.

Some 12.02 million people watched the episode live, a figure that only eclipsed the season seven finale.

The final of the May 19 series should beat both records.

The numbers for Sunday's episode are expected to increase significantly after repeated and repeated viewing. HBO said 38 million people watched the premiere of season eight.

CBS dominated the top 10 of the rest of the week, with "The Big Bang Theory" in second, "Young Sheldon" in third and "60 Minutes" in fourth. This allowed him to win the week in prime time with an average of 4.4 million viewers. NBC has 3.4 million viewers, ABC 3 million, Fox 2 million, ION Television 1.1 million, Telemundo 1 million, Univision 880,000 and CW 680,000.

Fox News Channel was the most popular cable network of the week, with 2.27 million viewers in prime time. TNT had 2 million, ESPN had 1.6 million, MSNBC had 1.58 million and HGTV had 1.2 million.

ABC's "World News Tonight" dominated evening newscasts with an average of 8.5 million viewers. NBC's "Nightly News" is second at 7.7 million euros and the CBS Evening News at 5.6 million viewers.

For the week of April 22 to 28, the 10 best shows, their networks and their audiences:

"Game of Thrones", HBO, 12.02 million euros; "The Big Bang Theory", CBS, 11.85 million euros; "Young Sheldon", CBS, 10.49 million euros; "60 minutes," CBS, 9.27 million; American Idol, ABC, 8.74 million; Chicago Fire, NBC, 8.11 million; Chicago Med, NBC, 7.89 million; "Mom", CBS, 7.85 million; "Blue Bloods", CBS, 7.78 million; "The Voice", NBC, 7.6 million.