The top ten shows on HBO and Showtime in October 2015
The fall is always extremely important for HBO and Showtime. In October Game of Thrones was still in the lead as fans caught up and binge watched. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and the critically-acclaimed The Leftovers followed directly. Homeland ruled Showtime as the CIA drama continues to capture fans (often eerily mimicking real life terror and extremism that we see on the news). Here are the charts and insights from SimilarWeb.
Update: This month we changed our methodology slightly to merge together HBO.com and HBO GO. We also merged Sho.com and showtimeanytime.com. This was done to more accurately show trends on both channels and to give you a better idea of which shows are the trendiest.
Main insights: October was all about Homeland, but Showtime viewers also love sex themed shows (Gigolos, Masters of Sex, The Affair)
Insights for HBO:
- Winter officially begins on December 21st, but for fans of Game of Thrones, it’s winter all year round. The show continues its impressive streak as the most viewed HBO show online, even though season 5 ended way back in June.
- It’s been a great month for Last Week Tonight host John Oliver who took 26% of HBO’s top 10 traffic. Oliver even gained some ground on GOT and his show may be able to nab the top stop if the trend continues.
- The only newcomer to this month’s HBO top 10 is drama series The Leftovers, which premiered its second season on October 4th. Still, despite being one of HBO’s few shows to air new episodes in October, The Leftovers only got 10% of the top 10 traffic. With more new episodes, we expect The Leftovers will remain in the top 3 in the coming months.
- In our new combined list, Silicon Valley was a big winner, and the show jumped to 4th overall after ranking 6th and 8th on the separate HBO lists. We suspect Pied Piper founder Richard Hendricks would be very pleased that we compressed our lists together!
- With political season in high swing Veep has benefitted from a steady stream of viewers and it stays at number 5 with 6% of HBO’s top traffic.
- Last month we told you that though Entourage ended in 2011 they were likely getting renewed interested because of the recently released film remake. This trend holds true for October but their traffic share is dropping and once other new shows begin they will be in danger of falling off the list.
- Bernie Sanders headlined Bill Maher’s guest list in October, but yet Maher still saw his traffic drop significantly. Last month he took 10% of hbo.com’s traffic but on our new combined list he sits in just 7th place with 4% of the traffic share.
- The oldest show on HBO’s top ten is The Wire, which still manages to garner a large audience despite having aired its final episode in early 2008.
- Curb Your Enthusiasm and True Detective round out the bottom of the HBO October list, leaving popular shows such as True Blood, The Knick, and Boardwalk Empire out of the top 10.
Insights for Showtime:
- Homeland is back and for Showtime viewers, little else matters right now. The show stormed out of the gate with season 5 beginning in early October. Barring any major shift in the rankings, we fully expect to see Homeland on top for the foreseeable future.
- The Affair began season 2 with an expanded narrative and it’s fair to say fans are enjoying it. The slightly risque drama took 18% of the traffic share and solidified its position at number 2.
- With Homeland back and The Affair in full swing, the reign of Ray Donovan is finally over. The popular crime drama ruled Showtime ever since we started tracking its performance in July. However, the show still received an impressive 16% of the traffic share and remain part of our rankings in the coming months.
- Masters of Sex wrapped up season 3 on September 27th and as a result saw a huge loss in October traffic. In September the show was holding 18% and 16% on the separate Showtime lists, but that number is way down to only 5% in October. Will Showtime viewers remain interested in the sexuality-focused drama?
- Notre Dame football has being performing exceptionally well both on and off the field. Viewers love the in-depth sports show and the Fighting Irish (Notre Dame’s football team) have had a stellar season thus far, with a record of 10-1.
- Halloween did not help Showtime’s horror show Penny Dreadful, and the show saw a small dip in traffic from last month’s lists.
- House of Lies is 7th on our list with 3% of the top 10 traffic. The show’s 5th season will be starting in January and in the weeks leading to it we expect people to revisit the dark comedy.
- An interesting addition to the Showtime top 10 is the controversial reality show Gigolos. The show follows male escorts in Las Vegas, although the legality of the services they provide has been questioned. Nevertheless, showtime viewers have taken to watching Gigolos over other well known shows such as Brotherhood, Dexter, Polyamory: Married and Dating, Nurse Jackie, and more.
- At the bottom of the Showtime list is the twisted documentary series 7 Deadly Sins and the historical fiction The Tudors. Both shows are in danger of falling out of the top 10.
SimilarWeb is the leading competitive market intelligence firm providing data analytics on desktop websites, mobile web and mobile apps. The SimilarWeb platform provides PPC, SEO, Media Buyers and Affiliates an edge over the competition with actionable insights into their competitor’s marketing tactics. Discover the data for yourself at SimilarWeb.com, with free insights for any website or mobile app.
You can access the Future of TV hub here. Sign up to receive The Drum's Future of TV newsletter.