After a slightly lackluster display from its overnight ratings, any initial judgment regarding the success of the Shannara Chronicles premiere was clearly premature.

Today, MTV released a press announcement declaring that it’s all good news for its freshman TV series The Shannara Chronicles.

Not only did the show leap 71% in L+3 ratings, the total number of viewers has reached a whopping 7.5 million viewings across all airings. That’s including the live premiere telecast, Live + 3, and MTV’s digital platforms — MTV.com and the MTV app.

They go on to report, “It was the number-one original series in its timeslot on cable among P12-34, P18-24, P18-34, and P18-49, and the number two original series on cable for the night among P12-34, second only to MTV’s Teen Wolf.”

This 71% L+3 lift is the biggest for a series premiere in MTV history. Plus, the two hour premiere also delivered the best single-week performance on iTunes ever for an MTV series.

The good news doesn’t stop there. Nielsen’s Twitter ratings also had things pointing in a positive direction. “MTV was the number-one most social non-sports network on the night of The Shannara Chronicles debut, with the premiere event delivering a strong performance on social media,” the network reports. “The premiere earned 30,000 tweets during the broadcast – approximately 5 tweets per second – during its initial airing.”

Executive Vice President and Head of Scripted Development for MTV Mina Lefevre said of the show’s success, “The incredibly positive response on social media and great word of mouth translated into big viewership for the Shannara premiere, delivering a very strong start for the series and a lot of new viewers to the network”. Going on to say, “This season truly just gets better as we raise the stakes for our heroes and reveal more of the world of Shannara, and we’re excited to take fans further on this epic journey.”

The Shannara Chronicles episode 3, “Fury,” airs tonight, January 12, at 10 p.m. on MTV.