HBO’s ‘The Idol’ Audience Falls Shy of Sam Levinson’s ‘Euphoria’ Debut

HBO’s The Idol could stand to have more followers.

The oft-lurid new drama co-created by Euphoria‘s Sam Levinson debuted on Sunday night to 913,000 total viewers across Max and linear telecasts, with Game 2 of the NBA Finals on ABC offering decent competition.

For comparison’s sake, HBO’s Winning Time in March 2022 debuted to 901,000 total viewers, The White Lotus in July 2021 first opened its doors to 944,000 guests, and Levinson’s Euphoria in June 2019 drew 1.1 million lookie-loos with its own series premiere.

Then again… The Last of Us back in January launched with 4.7 million viewers, while the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon‘s first episode last August shattered HBO records by drawing nearly 10 million people to its opening night.

In this streaming day and age, HBO series typically generate but a fraction of their total audience on premiere night. In fact, the shows mentioned above grew their preliminary audience by factors of 6, 7 or even 10 over the course of a season.

The Idol arrived on HBO amid an avalanche of negative press about behind-the-scenes turmoil involving Levinson and star The Weeknd aka Abel Tesfaye, who co-created the series with Levinson and Reza Fahim.

TVLine readers gave the premiere episode an average grade of “D”; read our complete recap, grab yourself a shower, and weigh in.