"The Tudors" Reign Supreme

Showtime's period drama "The Tudors" premiered on Sunday night pulling in 870,000 viewers, three times the cable network's prime-time average in 2006, eclipsing the success of hits such as "Dexter" and "Weeds."

Another 404,000 viewers tuned in at 11pm to see the encore of the series premiere making it the strongest debut on the network in three years (since Kirstie Alley's reality show "Fat Actress.")

The network also believes than more than a million people caught at least a part of the premiere via on-demand and Showtime.com platforms and the numbers could increase once the results of online partners Yahoo and AOL come in.

Freshman shows tend to lose a part of its pilot audience, so next Sunday will prove whether the big budget costume drama is capable of retaining a greater deal of that audience or if there will be a more substantial tune-out.

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