TV Ratings: ‘Girls’ Finale Averages 632,000 Viewers as Audience Shifts to Delayed Viewing

Girls wrapped up its second season on Sunday night, pulling in 632,000 viewers during the inaugural broadcast.

The haul is down roughly 368,000 viewers from the freshman season's 1 million-strong ender -- but while the HBO comedy has seen dips in first-run returns since its January return, it's been making up for it in delayed viewing.

ANALYSIS: 'Girls' and Lena Dunham Triumph Again in Season 2

According to HBO, season two of Girls has been averaging 4.6 million gross viewers when combining first airings with DVR, encores, On Demand and HBO Go views. That's even with first season's average.

HBO also notes that 27 percent of Girls' gross returns come from HBO On Demand and HBO Go -- the highest portion for any current show on the network.

Across Sunday night, adding two more encores, Girls brought in a total 1.1 million viewers.

The season two premiere of Girls pulled in a 866,000 viewers when it returned on Jan. 13, mostly steady with its 2012 launch -- though up in gross viewers to 1.6 million with encores that night. HBO has renewed the series for a third season. Production starts in New York this month.

Elsewhere in the HBO-verse, Friday's season finale of Banshee wrapped the Cinemax freshman's season on a solid note. Banshee averaged 455,000 viewers in its inaugural broadcast, with a cumulative 655,000 viewers with the addition of an encore. Bashee outranks all previous Cinemax originals, averaging 433,000 viewers for premiere broadcasts and a cumulative 13.4 million viewers for the season.

Banshee was renewed for a second season in January.

Michael O'Connell