The Last Of Us Episode 5: Why Super Bowl 57 forced HBO into early release date
HBO is doing everything it can to ensure “The Last of Us” becomes the network’s next big hit.
That includes deviating from his original broadcast schedule to avoid his post-apocalyptic drama facing the biggest event on the North American sports calendar.
HBO announced in a press release that episode five of “The Last of Us” will air on Friday, February 10 at 9 p.m. ET. The network announced that this would be a one-time move and that all other episodes of the series would air on Sundays.
New episodes of the series will continue to air on HBO on Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT and are available to stream on HBO Max until the season finale on March 12.
Here’s everything you need to know about The Last of Us Episode 5 and how the Super Bowl 2023 impacted its broadcast schedule.
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Release date of The Last of Us Episode 5
- Date: Friday February 10th
- Time: 9pm ET (6pm PT)
Episode 5 of The Last of Us will no longer air on Sunday February 12th. Instead, she will debut two days early on Friday, February 10 so as not to compete with the Super Bowl 57 duel between the Eagles and Chiefs.
Why is The Last of Us Episode 5 airing on Friday?
HBO moved the premiere of episode five of The Last of Us to Friday so as not to directly compete with the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl begins Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET. The program is expected to last around four hours thanks to the lavish pre-game ceremonies and extended half-time, as well as the trophy presentation and post-game speeches.
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The Last of Us normally airs its new episodes on Sundays from 9:00 p.m. ET to 10:00 p.m. ET. Even if the Super Bowl were shorter than usual, it wouldn’t be fast enough for viewers to catch the end of the big game and the premiere of the episode.
HBO could have opted to air the fifth episode after the Super Bowl, but would likely have missed critical East Coast viewership since the episode’s start time would likely have to be 11 p.m. ET to avoid the end of the Super Bowl window. Therefore, moving the episode’s premiere to Friday was a better choice for the company to maximize viewership.
So far, viewership for “The Last of Us” has peaked at a maximum of 7.5 million (per Variety) during the release of the fourth installment, which directly rivaled the Grammys. In comparison, the 2022 Super Bowl between the Rams and Bengals averaged 99.18 million viewers, according to SportsMediaWatch.com.
So it’s easy to see why HBO made this decision. And fans of both the NFL and The Last of Us will surely be glad the network made the switch.
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The Last of Us Episode 5 Trailer
Below is a look at the trailer for The Last of Us episode 5, in which Joel and Ellie will try to escape the trouble they got into in Kansas City.