HBO & HBO Max Chief On ‘Euphoria’ & ‘Peacemaker’ Ratings Success, Pending Discovery Acquisition

deadline.com:

Just as Discovery’s acquisition of WarnerMedia is entering the final stretch, HBO/HBO Max is living up to its status as one of the most prized assets in the proposed deal.Following the (mostly virtual) watercooler conversation-dominating Season 3 of Succession at the end of 2021, HBO and HBO Max both started 2022 with a bang.

The second season of HBO’s Euphoria, starring Zendaya, has defied ratings gravity, hitting new series highs every week, including one against the Super Bowl this past Sunday (5.1 million multi-platform viewers on premiere night.)The Season 2 premiere literally broke HBO Max, with the overwhelming demand causing the app to go down for a lbit.

The season 2 opener is now approaching 17M viewers across platforms, just over 2.5x the average audience of Season 1 (6.6 million viewers per episode).

Euphoria, created by Sam Levinson, regularly ranks as the No. 1 title on HBO Max in the U.S., and the top series globally.James Gunn’s Suicide Squad spinoff series for HBO Max, Peacemaker, also has set series highs each Thursday as new episodes are released.Additionally, Julian Fellows’ period drama The Gilded Age logged HBO’s strongest ratings performance on Monday in almost three years, since Chernobyl.