The Showtime drama series “Penny Dreadful” debuted to 1.443 million viewers last night. The series premiere of “Penny Dreadful” drew 872,000 at 10 p.m.
“Penny Dreadful,” which debuted to wide critical acclaim, was sampled across Showtime On Demand and Showtime Anytime two weeks leading up to its premiere last night. Within that time period an additional 900,000 Showtime subscribers sampled the series, bringing the “Penny Dreadful” series premiere total to 2.3 million viewers.
62 percent of the “Penny Dreadful” premiere audience last night was aged 18-49. That is the youngest-skewing audience for a Showtime drama since “Dexter’s” series premiere in 2006 with 65 percent.
The series premiere was also offered across multiple platforms including YouTube, the Showtime website, via a number of television providers’ websites, on the Showtime Preview app on Smart TVs, as well as for download as a free video podcast on iTunes. Additional online sampling data will be available in the upcoming weeks for those platforms though early data shows that over 500,000 non-Showtime viewers have sampled the series to-date.
In “Penny Dreadful”, some of literature’s most famous characters – including Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and iconic figures from the novel Dracula, all brilliantly reimagined in a whole new light – have become embroiled in Victorian London. The series stars Josh Hartnett, Timothy Dalton and Eva Green. Reeve Carney, Rory Kinnear, Billie Piper, Danny Sapani and Harry Treadaway also star. “Penny Dreadful” is created, written and executive produced by three-time Oscar nominee John Logan and executive produced by Logan’s Desert Wolf Productions, along with Oscar winner Sam Mendes and Pippa Harris, both of Neal Street. Of the eight episodes, the first two were directed by famed genre master Juan Antonio Bayona.
