The third season premiere of HBO’s “The Leftovers” trailed the second season finale in adults 18-49 and live+same-day viewership, but it did outperform the previous premiere.
According to live+same-day data posted by Showbuzz, Sunday’s “Leftovers” drew a 0.39 adults 18-49 rating and averaged 895,000 overall viewers.
The previous season began its run with a 0.33 rating and 713,000 viewers. It concluded with a 0.48 and 993,000.
It is worth noting that the show faced stronger competition in its second season. All episodes faced Sunday Night Football, while many (albeit neither of the two aforementioned episodes) faced competition from “The Walking Dead.”
Granted, this week’s episode also aired on Easter Sunday, which further renders a comparison to past seasons difficult.
It will be interesting to see how the show holds up through the season, although the assessment will be somewhat moot as HBO has already confirmed this will be the final cycle of “The Leftovers.”
— Earlier in the night, HBO aired the series finale of “Girls.” The episode drew a 0.35 rating and 741,000 viewers. The numbers narrowly top the 0.33 rating and 734,000 viewer mark drawn last week but do not represent season highs.
Airing out of the “Big Little Lies” finale, the April 2 episode drew a 0.35 rating and 765,000 viewers.
— HBO followed “The Leftovers” with “Veep” (0.27, 659,000) and “Last Week Tonight” (0.43, 1.181 million).
