TV Ratings: ‘White Lotus’ Sets New Premiere High With Season 3 Debut

The third season of The White Lotus opened to the show’s largest premiere audience so far.

The HBO series brought in 2.4 million cross-platform viewers on its opening night Sunday, a 57 percent increase on the season two premiere (1.5 million). The night one figure includes the on-air premiere and replays on HBO and streaming on Max.

After 36 hours — including the Presidents Day holiday — HBO says the premiere grew to 4.6 million viewers, double the audience for season two’s first episode over the same amount of time. Viewing in Europe and Latin America more than tripled compared to the season two premiere, HBO says (though it didn’t provide any data the global audience).

The Thailand-set third season of Mike White’s satire follows another group of privileged guests at the White Lotus resort, the staff there, and — it’s hardly a spoiler to say at this point — a murder mystery, as an as yet unidentified dead body turns up early in the first episode.

The prior two seasons of The White Lotus have posted audience figures several times larger than their premiere night audiences (HBO measures cross-platform performance of its shows for 90 days from the premiere date). Season two ended up averaging 15.5 million viewers, and season one (which premiered to 944,000 first-night viewers) averaged 9.3 million.

The season three cast features Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Sarah Catherine Hook, Jason Isaacs, Lalisa Manobal, Michelle Monaghan, Sam Nivola, Lek Patravadi, Parker Posey, Natasha Rothwell (reprising her role from the first season), Patrick Schwarzenegger, Tayme Thapthimthong, Aimee Lou Wood, Nicholas Duvernay, Arnas Fedaravičius, Christian Friedel, Scott Glenn, Dom Hetrakul, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Julian Kostov, Charlotte Le Bon, Morgana O’Reilly, and Shalini Peiris.

White writes, directs and executive produces The White Lotus. David Bernad and Mark Kamine also exec produce.