The House of the Dragon premiere beat The Rings of Power by a considerable margin

House of the Dragon episode 3 — (Image credit: HBO)

House of the Dragon is beating The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in the fantasy TV war, according to new data. Both shows have been warmly received by critics so far.

Per Samba TV, a lot more US households watched House of the Dragon episode 1 vs. The Rings of Power episode 1. In both shows' first four days, House of the Dragon was watched by 4.8 million US households, while The Rings of Power drew 1.8 million US households. What's more, 2.6 million of those House of the Dragon household views were in its first six hours, too.

Middle-Earth v Westeros has a winner in the US according to 3rd party researcher #SambaTV, as new #PrimeVideo’s #TheRingsOfPower was watched in 1.8M US Households in first 4 days. #HouseOfTheDragon had 2.6M just on SUN premiere night alone.But #TROP had victories as well.1/5 pic.twitter.com/S2u1E9a7OTSeptember 6, 2022

Amazon Prime Video shared that The Rings of Power brought in 25 million global views in its first 24 hours streaming, which is the biggest ever debut for a Prime Video TV show. HBO, meanwhile, declared just shy of 10 million US viewers on premiere night. Samba TV only measures views from certain TVs, however, which might explain the discrepancy with HBO's own figures.

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It's not really bad news for The Rings of Power, either – again, using Samba TV figures, it's the fourth biggest streaming show of the year so far, behind House of the Dragon, Stranger Things, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Considering series released on streaming in 2022 measured by #SambaTV, it’s the #4 biggest debut of 2022, only below#HoTD’s 4.8M, #StrangerThings’s 2.9M & #ObiWanKenobi’s 2.1M, beating #MoonKnight which took 5 days to reach same 1.8M US households #TheRingsOfPower reached.4/5 pic.twitter.com/xsQ4ElEhMJSeptember 6, 2022

House of the Dragon has already been renewed for season 2, while The Rings of Power will return for a huge five seasons. Whatever way you look at it, then, fantasy fans are the real winners here.

You can check out our House of the Dragon release schedule and our The Rings of Power release schedule to keep up to date with both shows.

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I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film section. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.