The numbers are in, and as expected, True Blood‘s season 3 premiere on Sunday was huge, pulling in over 5 million viewers.  A replay of the premiere later Sunday night pulled in more than 1 million as well, bringing the Sunday night total to 6.4 million viewers.

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While it’s not a series high, the show certainly did better than the season 2 premiere, which brought in 3.7 million viewers.  With multiple viewing platforms like DVR, On Demand and reruns of the episode throughout the week, the end result could be as high as 15 million people.

Even without those additional numbers, True Blood still beat FOX and NBC’s Sunday lineups, a very impressive feat for a pay-cable network.  The show averaged around 2 million viewers per episode for season 1 and a little over 4 million in season 2.  The season 3 premiere shows that True Blood isn’t done growing. It continues to be HBO’s top series.

(Image courtesy of HBO)

John Kubicek

Senior Writer, BuddyTV

John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire DiariesSupernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.