The most recent episode of Game of Thrones, which aired in the US on Sunday night and in the UAE last night, has become the most tweeted TV show episode in history, with around eight million tweets taking place during the show's live broadcast.
(UAE viewers were also able to watch the show live along with US and other global viewers by watching on OSN Play at 5am Monday).
We're breaking records over here!
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) April 29, 2019
Last night's episode of @GameOfThrones was the most Tweeted about episode of scripted television EVER with nearly 8 MILLION Tweets. 🐉📺 https://t.co/D5IVk8R9LX
The record refers only to scripted TV shows, and so excludes Twitter-friendly live events such as, for example, the Superbowl or presidential election.
The episode, entitled The Long Night, which featured reportedly the longest battle scene in screen history, clocking in at 67 minutes, snatched the record from, naturally, Game of Thrones.
Just two weeks ago the show set a new record of over five million tweets with its season eight premiere. There have so far been more than 52 million tweets published about Game of Thrones over the course of 2019, and last night's most tweeted-about character was Arya, followed by the Night King, Bran, Jon Snow and Cersei Lannister (even though she didn't appear in the episode).
The relative popularity of the characters on Twitter roughly tallies to the results of a survey by YouGov, taken among 1,063 UAE respondents between April 17 and 23, before last night’s episode aired.
That survey found that 31 per cent of respondents wanted Jon Snow to ultimately take the Iron Throne. Snow was trailed in a distant second by Arya Stark with 9.4 per cent, with the Night King just behind her on 9.3 per cent. Tyrion Lannister and Daenery Targaryan round out the top five.
When the question was switched to who viewers think actually will take the throne, rather than who they want to, Snow still topped the polls on 28 per cent, though a new option – the destruction of the Iron Throne – moves into second on 11 per cent. Arya and the Night King switch places for third and fourth with 10 per cent and nine per cent respectively.
It would be interesting to see how voters would respond following the most recent episode when, without heading into major spoiler territory, there were some fairly significant plot developments for leading contenders Arya and the Night King, so we’ll await the next survey with interest.
