The premiere of Showtime’s new Twin Peaks series drew 506,000 million viewers on its linear channel, an audience that paled in comparison with other premium cable shows' performances Sunday (May 21)

For example, on HBO during the same time period (9-11 p.m. ET), The Leftovers drew 770,000 viewers at 9 p.m., while Silicon Valley at 10 p.m. had 844,000.

Related: Serving Up the ‘Twin Peaks’ Premiere … And a Slice of Cherry Pie [subscription required]

The premiere of the original Twin Peaks in 1990 had 35 million viewers, but that was a vastly different era for television.

Showtime is airing 18 episodes of the new Twin Peaks, with show co-creator David Lynch directing all of them.

Video: The 'Twin Peaks' Trailer

The network said the show generated a record number of signups for its direct-to-consumer streaming service for the single biggest day and weekend in its history in terms of signups; Showtime did not provide the number of signups.

“In the world that we live in now, offering original programming that attracts new subscribers is our primary business objective,” said David Nevins, president and CEO, Showtime Networks. “By that standard, the Twin Peaks premiere is the biggest single-night driver we’ve ever had.”

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

New HBO programming head Casey Bloys will shepherd an impressive stable of scripted dramas, comedies, original movies and specials — the envy of most content distributors across virtually all distribution platforms — but he also has some holes to fill going forward.

Bloys replaces former president of programming Michael Lombardo. Under Lombardo, HBO last year racked up the greatest Emmy Awards performance in history, taking home a network record 43 of them in September, including a record haul of 12 for signature series Game of Thrones.

Bloys, who is also overseeing documentaries, films, sports and Cinemax programming, is in command of an upcoming slate HBO hopes will continue to thrive against emerging powers Netf lix, Amazon and Hulu along with more conventionally distributed rivals such as Showtime, Starz and FX.

With Game of Thrones winding down — it’s signed for another season and likely to have an eighth season, too, but showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss intimate the end is near — industry observers have wondered what HBO has cooking in terms of potential replacements.

High-profile springtime newcomer Vinyl, from creators Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese and starring Bobby Cannavale and Ray Romano, failed to live up to the hype, although it will return for one more go-round.

Vinyl averaged 4.3 million viewers across multiple plays and screens, according to HBO. Juggernaut Game of Thrones, by contrast, averaged 7.8 million viewers for its May 22 episode.

Sources close to the network say Bloys — who focused mostly on comedy series, late night and specials projects at HBO before adding drama series when executive vice president Michael Ellenberg left earlier in the year — already has his hands on a number of high-profile projects scheduled for this year. They include 1970s porn-themed The Deuce, from producer David Simon (The Wire, Treme); and an adapation of Westworld from Star Trek and Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams.

Comedies Insecure from Issa Rae and Vice Principals, starring Danny McBride, are also in the queue, and drama series The Leftovers will continue with a third and final season.

Lombardo — credited with reviving HBO after a post-Sopranos creative slump with such shows as Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, True Detective and Girls — moves into a production role and will develop projects for the network.

His departure, after more than 30 years at the Time Warner Inc.-owned programmer, hit the trades the afternoon of Friday, May 20. The appointment of Bloys was announced May 23.

HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler praised Lombardo in a statement: “It goes without saying that Mike’s contributions over these many years, most especially in the last nine as president of programming, have been nothing short of extraordinary.”

Along with Ellenberg’s departure, HBO in December named longtime executive Peter Nelson as executive vice president of HBO Sports, replacing Ken Hershman, who had resigned a month prior.

HBO has renewed its drama series The Leftovers for a third and final season, the network said Thursday.

The series, about the lives of the people left on earth after The Rapture, is produced by Damon Lindeloff and Tom Perrotta, based on the book of the same name by Perrotta.

The second season of the series told a tale of two families, the Garveys and the Murphys, whose lives intersected in surprising ways, following the Garveys from New York to eastern Texas, where one small town, nicknamed “Miracle,” and its residents had been spared during The Departure.

“It is with great enthusiasm that we welcome back Damon Lindelof, Tom Perrotta and the extraordinary talent behind The Leftovers for its third and final season,” said Michael Lombardo, president, HBO Programming. “This show has proven to be one of the most distinctive HBO series and we are extremely proud of its unrivaled originality, which has resulted in such a passionate following by our HBO viewers. We admire and fully support Damon’s artistic vision and respect his decision to bring the show to its conclusion next season.”

HBO’s last walk with Nucky Thompson in Atlantic City got off to a solid start, drawing 2.4 million watches to its fifth and final season premiere on Sunday night.

The bow of Boardwalk Empire on Sept. 7 outperformed its fourth-season ender’s 2.2 million by 9%, according to Nielsen data, while matching last season’s opener. With encores at 11:30 p.m. and 2 a.m., the Steve Buscemi-starrer garnered 2.9 million viewers for the night, down from 3.2 million the year before when there was only a single replay.

For its part, the first season finale of The Leftovers, which has been renewed for a second campaign, matched its season average of 1.5 million watchers.

Including its second play at 12:30 a.m., the episode was watched by 1.7 million viewers for the night. 

Both programs ran up against the kickoff of NBC’s Sunday Night Football, TV’s biggest audience-tackler for the past three TV and NFL seasons. Denver-Indianapolis averaged 23.9 million viewers on Sept. 7.

The Leftovers' average gross audience via encores and different platforms averaged 7.3 million viewers for its rookie run.

Fans bid farewell to Bon Temps last night as True Blood wrapped its seven-season run with 4 million viewers.

The "Thank You" series finale -- highlighted by Sookie staking Bill, Eric and Pam flourishing in a blood business of their own and the rest of the surviving players in happy domesticity -- was down 2% from its sixth-season concluder. Adding the 11:30 p.m. replay, 4.5 million viewers watched True Blood's final original Sunday.  

Heading into the finale, True Blood's average gross audience across replays and multiplatform viewing totaled 9.4 million viewers. 

With Ana Pacquin, Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgard, Ryan Kwantem and Deborah Ann Woll providing a last live lead-in, penultimate episode of The Leftovers' first season reached a series' high 1.9 million viewer at 10:10 p.m. (ET). That number increased to 2.1 million with the 12:30 a.m. encore

Season-to-date, The Leftovers is averaging 7.3 milion in gross audience.

For its part on Friday, Aug. 22, the third episode of The Knick attracted a nightly gross viewership record of 754,000 viewers, a 15% jump from the 657,000 from its debut night. At 10 p.m. Cinemax operated with 407,000 viewers, with 190,000 and 157,000 tuning in at 11 p.m. and midnight (Saturday, Aug. 23), respectively.  The Knick has average gross audience of 2.7 million viewers for the season.