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Penny Dreadful had a solid debut for Showtime.
After two weeks of online sampling, Showtime’s latest drama debuted to 872,000 viewers at its initial 10 p.m. Sunday airing. Including encores, Penny Dreadful — starring Eva Green and Josh Hartnett — increased to 1.44 million viewers for its premiere outing. Most importantly, about 62 percent who tuned in fell in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demo, making it the network’s youngest-skewing audience since Dexter‘s 2006 launch.
That measure came without a proper lead-in and tops the series premieres of Homeland and Masters of Sex — both delivered 1.38 million on their debut nights — with the help of Dexter and Homeland, respectively.
With the inclusion of two weeks of previews, Showtime notched an additional 900,000 subscribers, bringing Penny Dreadful‘s premiere total to 2.3 million. Showtime did not tally non-subscribers who tuned in during its free preview weekend in its 2.3 million viewer count.
Over at HBO, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Veep notched a season high with 1.1 million viewers at 10:30 p.m. (With the encore, that rises to 1.3 million.) Silicon Valley, meanwhile took in 1.7 million viewers a half hour earlier and tacked on an additional 200,000 to its encore.
Game of Thrones continued its strong season-four performance, luring 6.4 million viewers at 9 p.m. and 7.7 million total for the evening.
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver averaged more than 1 million viewers following Veep.
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