More than 17m people tuned in to watch the premiere of the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones, handing HBO its biggest-ever night of streaming activity.

A total of 17.4m viewers, across terrestrial broadcast and HBO’s streaming and video-on-demand platforms, tuned in for their fix of the medieval fantasy epic, higher than the 16.1m who watched the season seven finale 20 months ago, and edging past the 16.9m who tuned in for the first episode of that season.

The episode also delivered the network its highest-ever level of streaming activity, with viewing on the HBO Now streaming service 97 per cent and 50 per cent higher than the season seven premieres and finales, respectively. This was “testament to the evolving consumption habits of subscribers”, HBO said in a release on Monday afternoon.