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The premiere of HBO’s new drama “The Deuce” put up decent, if not world-beating, ratings for its first episode



The show from “The Wire” creator David Simon and collaborator George Pelecanos drew 830,000 viewers for its first airing Sunday. A replay later in the night gathered 342,000 more people for a nightly total of 1.17 million.

That puts it in line with the debut of “The Night Of” in summer 2016. It delivered a cumulative 1.1 million viewers over two airings its first night.

HBO made “The Deuce” available on demand and on its streaming apps HBO Go and HBO Now two weeks prior to the on-air debut; the company says an additional 1.1 million people watched the premiere that way, bringing its total to 2.2 million. That too is on par with “The Night Of,” which had a similar pre-release window and ended up with 2.1 million viewers after its on-air debut.