A recent article from the New York Times focusing on the competition between Showtime and HBO has revealed updated audience totals for some of HBO’s shows. And what do you know, Game of Thrones has now passed Boardwalk Empire to become HBO’s 2nd most watched show! Thrones clocks in with an average of 9.3 million viewers per episode, while Boardwalk is now at 8.4 million. True Blood is tops with 12.6 million.

Not only that, but the article reports that True Blood and Thrones trail only The Sopranos for the most watched show in the network’s history! That’s pretty amazing.

Winter Is Coming: Some quick analysis: it seems part of Thrones‘ leapfrog over Boardwalk is due to the lower viewer totals of Boardwalk‘s second season dragging down the show’s average (which was at 10.7m following season one). However, at our last report Thrones had 8.9 million viewers per ep, so the show has gained an average of 400,000 viewers per episode in between seasons strictly though On Demand and HBO Go. Amazing. Once the DVD drops, I suspect even more new viewers will be added and hopefully subscribe to HBO for season two. With all these new viewers on board the season two numbers should be huge. True Blood better watch it’s back!