True Detective‘s current season has become the most watched in the anthology’s history at HBO.
The Jodie Foster- and Kali Reis-led fourth season, subtitled Night Country, is averaging 12.7 million viewers across all platforms since its Jan. 14 premiere. The show has supplanted True Detective’s first season, which aired a decade ago, as the biggest to date; season one averaged 11.9 million viewers across platforms (HBO measures viewing for 90 days after a season premiere).
As is almost always the case with HBO series in recent years, the vast majority of viewing for Night Country has come via streaming. The show’s first four episodes averaged about 642,000 viewers for their initial airing on HBO, compared to about 2.6 million for season one. First-night streaming on Max, however, more than doubles the show’s linear audience, according to HBO, and continues to accumulate after the fact. (The first three seasons of True Detective had more limited streaming availability via Max precursors HBO Now and HBO Go.)
HBO further says that episode five of the season, which debuted two days early on Max to get out of the way of the Super Bowl, currently stands at 5 million viewers across all platforms.
The numbers for Night Country compare favorably to those of The White Lotus, which averaged 10.1 million viewers going into its finale, and Succession, whose final season stood at 8.7 million viewers over a similar time span.