Cersei Lannister is not pleased with these numbers. HBO

"Game of Thrones" has become a ratings Juggernaut since its premiere in 2011.

The penultimate, seventh season premiere of "Game of Thrones" broke the record for the most watched HBO season premiere of all time when it reached 26 million views across platforms and in delayed viewing, according to Variety. 

Curious to see how "Game of Thrones" ratings stack up against the season premieres of other popular HBO shows, Business Insider reached out to the audience measurement company Nielsen for answers.

It was impossible for Nielsen to provide the ratings information for every HBO season premiere, so instead a handful of some of the most critically acclaimed HBO shows were selected by Business Insider compare: "Game of Thrones," "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City," "True Blood," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "The Wire," "Six Feet Under," "The Leftovers," and "Girls."

The way TV is viewed has changed significantly since the introduction of DVR and streaming sites, and views from outside of linear TV have only just begun to be taken into account when calculating ratings. The data in our roundup only accounts for live views, as well as some time shifted (DVR) viewing within the same day. Data for season premieres aired prior to 2006 only factor in live views.

The results? When it comes to live television views for HBO season premieres, "Game of Thrones" doesn't come in first place, in fact it doesn't even come in second, or third — it comes in fifth place, at least when only looking at live views. Even though it's been 16 years since it aired, "The Sopranos" season three premiere raked in the most live views of any HBO season premiere. "The Sopranos" fourth season premiere follows in second place, and "Sex and the City"'s fourth season premiere comes in third place.

Anaele Pelisson/Business Insider

It should be noted that "The Sopranos' " season three premiere, and "Sex and the City's" season four and season one premieres were aired as two separate programs, but for the sake of brevity we combined the numbers.

The season premiere ratings for "The Wire," "The Leftovers," and "Girls" didn't make it onto the top 20 highest ranking HBO premiere list. The highest live views "Girls" received was for its third season premiere at 1.1 million, "The Leftovers"'s highest rated season premiere was its first with 1.7 million views, and "The Wire" had the most views for its second season premiere with 4.4 million views.

The season premiere that had the lowest season premiere, out of the shows selected was "Girls" — its fifth season pulled in a meager 489,000 views the night it aired.

Of course, there are a ton of series season premieres that were left out of this ranking, and streaming views from HBO Go and HBO Now are not accounted for — the inclusion of which would no doubt shake this chart up quite a bit. But based on the numbers, "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City" commanded live audiences like no other.

Given my role in the world, I say no a lot.

I get hundreds of unsolicited emails a day, often asking me to get together, invest, or look at something. Lots of VCs and execs who I know simply ignore and don’t respond to these emails. I’ve always tried to at least respond to them unless they are clearly a mass email.

A long time ago I learned how to quickly identify what I don’t want to spend time on, which I wrote about in 2009 in my post titled Saying No In Less Than 60 Seconds. As time has passed, I’ve tuned this filter more, as the volume of requests has gone up.

It’s not a burden to receive the requests. It used to be a burden to say no, but it isn’t anymore. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why, how it used to affect me, and how it affects me now.

I’m fundamentally an information synthesizer. I want more, not less, data. I want it from a diverse range of inputs. My brain does a good job of storing away bits and pieces of the stuff I see, read, and hear (although I’m worst at hearing – I much prefer seeing or reading) and brings them back to the forefront connected to other things at the appropriate moment. That’s one of the reasons I read such a diverse set of books.

But I don’t need a lot of data to make a decision as to whether I want to spend time on something. I’m already extremely booked up, so if I don’t say no as often, and as quickly as I do, I can’t begin to imagine what things would look like in my world. While I’m open to lots of new things, I only want to spend time on things that interest me or that I feel like I can add something to.

The one downside of this is that a lot of my schedule is a reactive one, where I’m spending time on things because I said yes to a request. I believe this is part of my job and it can be a satisfying part of my existence. But, when it gets out of balance with all the actual proactive work I need – or want – to do, it often causes me to have lost stretches of time like I did this summer.

I’m sitting in Amy’s office with my laptop catching up on stuff today. I’ve already told about 20 people no so far as I went through my emails from yesterday and overnight that I hadn’t yet responded to. I’m sure I’ve got another 20 after I finish this post, at which point I’ll start attacking my weekly non-urgent to-do list. The music Amy chose is nice and mellow, the sun is shining, and I’m calm and contemplative after a full week.

If I say no to you, realize that it rarely has something to do with the quality of your idea or you as an individual. Instead, it’s about me and how I want to spend my time. I know there’s often dissonance in that, especially if you are a founder who is trying to get my attention because they’d like me to be an investor in their company. But realize that by saying no quickly, I’m respecting you and your time by not wasting it.

Also published on Medium.