The Gilded Age Season 4 Opens to Its Biggest Premiere Audience

The Gilded Age has drawn its largest premiere audience so far. Season 4 opened on Sunday, November 1, and Deadline reported that the premiere was the series' most-watched season premiere ever.

HBO says the premiere drew nearly 4 million cross-platform U.S. viewers in its first three days of availability. "Cross-platform" means the count adds up viewing on television sets and on streaming apps, so a person who watched on either counts once. The premiere figure is up 25% from the 3.2 million viewers that Season 3 drew.

Season 3 averaged 8.8 million U.S. viewers per episode, according to HBO. That is a different kind of number. An average per episode measures a whole run of weeks, while the premiere figure measures the first few days of one episode. The two can't be compared directly, but together they show how the show's audience has moved from one season to the next.

The series is set in New York high society in the late 1800s. It follows the wealthy families of the Gilded Age and the people who work for them, from butlers and maids to the workers building the city around them. Its scripts, costumes and sets are a large operation, with crews and writers who depend on the show being renewed for each new season.

Season 4 runs on HBO and HBO Max, the company's streaming service. New episodes arrive on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time, and the season finale is set for December 20. That gives viewers a little under two months of weekly episodes to follow.

HBO has not announced any figures beyond the premiere count, so the full season's audience is still to come. Each Sunday will add to the picture, and the premiere's three-day figure will be the first marker for the rest of the run.