‘Game’ wins the week

For the first time in its eight seasons, “Game of Thrones” officially finished first in the weekly primetime cable and broadcast television ratings, with Sunday’s 81-minute episode averaging the second-most viewers in the HBO fantasy drama’s history.

Sunday’s episode, “The Long Night,” averaged 12.017 million viewers to be the most-watched prime-time program between April 22 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen, which does not include viewing on a streamed basis. Previous “Game of Thrones” episodes were likely the most-watched for a week when streaming figures were included.

“The Long Night” topped the eighth-season premiere, which aired April 14 and officially averaged 11.76 million viewers, to be “Game of Thrones’ ” second-most episode. The most-watched episode was the seventh-season finale, which averaged 12.072 million viewers on Aug. 27, 2017.

Two other programs last week averaged more than 10 million viewers — the backto-back CBS comedies “The Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon” — which averaged 11.849 million and 10.458 million, respectively.

The premiere of the eight-episode CBS limited series “The Red Line” was third in its 8-10 p.m. Sunday slot and 31st for the week, averaging 4.795 million viewers.

The combined viewership of coverage of the first round NFL draft Thursday on ESPN and ABC totaled 9.579 million viewers, a 4.1% increase over last year’s total of 9.199 million for ESPN and Fox’s simulcast of the NFL Network’s coverage.

The combined figures would have placed it third for the week.

The growth stems from ABC’s first prime-time draft coverage, which focused of what it described as “the journey of NFL draft prospects,” averaged 4.564 million viewers, 35th for the week, a 22% increase over the 3.742 million-average for Fox’s simulcast of the NFL Network’s coverage last year.

ESPN’s traditional draft telecast averaged 5.015 million viewers, 27th for the week, an 8% decrease from last year’s 5.457 million average.