After hitting a series high of 4.2 million viewers last week, “The White Lotus” has lifted its ratings ceiling again.
Mike White’s HBO series reached 4.8 million viewers with the seventh episode of its third season on Sunday, a 14% increase on last week’s record. That total comes from a combination of Nielsen’s measurement of linear viewers on HBO’s cable channel and Warner Bros. Discovery’s own data regarding streams on Max.
The new series high was expected based on viewership trends from the previous season. The instant buzz around the release of Episode 6 last week came partially due to a shocking sex scene; similarly, a jaw-dropper in the fifth episode of Season 2 brought about a then-series high of 2.3 million viewers, and was followed by increases to 2.8 million viewers and 4.1 million viewers with the last two outings of the season. The Season 2 finale held onto its record until last week’s big episode.
According to HBO, Season 3 is currently averaging 15 million viewers when accounting for delayed views on streaming after each episode’s debut. That’s only half a million behind the average that Season 2 reached after a full 90 days of streaming, despite that the Season 3 premiere has only been available for 43 days thus far. HBO also notes that “The White Lotus” saw an overall viewership high throughout the week between Episodes 6 and 7, as the series has done during each of the previous five weeks since the new season began.
