Way more people are already watching Industry on Sunday nights

Streaming is king and cable is dying, but HBO Sunday Nights still means something in this town. Certainly it does for the niche online community of prestige dramedy enjoyers, who heralded Industry’s move from Monday nights to the coveted Sunday slot as a major step up for the show. As it turns out, those guys were right. According to The Wrap, the Industry third season premiere drew an audience of 300,000 on Sunday at 9 PM. That’s reportedly 88% higher viewership than the series premiere and 60% higher than the second season premiere.   

Now, you’ll note that 300,000 is a relatively modest figure. The third season premiere of the CBS sitcom Ghosts, for instance, scored 7.05 million viewers in February (per The Hollywood Reporter), which proves once again that the shows everyone is talking about and nominating for awards are not necessarily the shows everyone’s watching. Now, HBO generally can’t be compared one-to-one with broadcast, but Industry’s numbers are modest even when compared to its HBO Sunday Nights predecessors like Succession or House Of The Dragon. Succession’s third season premiered to an audience of 1.4 million. House Of The Dragon’s second season debuted to 7.8 million viewers. Its finale, which aired the week before Industry’s premiere, attracted an audience of 8.9 million. 

House Of The Dragon has the benefit of brand recognition and the scope of a massive fantasy world. But Industry has something all too rare these days, which is word-of-mouth buzz. It’s actually heartening to see a network give a show time to find its footing and find its audience when so many streaming shows are cut off at the knees simply because they didn’t perform well enough in the initial 10-day window after premiering. Per The Wrap, Industry’s second season averaged 1.4 million total viewers per episode across linear, Max, and on-demand viewing, and viewership for the first two seasons increased “tenfold” ahead of the third season premiere. Another HBO Sunday Night alum, Barry, premiered its fourth and final season to 710,000 viewers and quadrupled its audience as the season continued. All to say: Industry fans have every reason to expect its ratings to improve now that it’s the new Sunday Night Show.