TRUE BLOOD Returns with 4.5 Million Viewers, Down from Last Year

True Blood sucked just a little less last night.

HBO's vampire-themed hit series kicked off its sixth season last night, sucking in 4.5 million viewers - down from last year's premiere which drew in 5.2 million. Despite being up against the fifth game in NBA Finals, BLOOD's total number of viewers was bumped up to 5.6 million with the encore taken into consideration.

True Blood was created by Alan Ball, who recently left the series. Co-executive producer Brian Buckner has taken over as showrunner for the series based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris; executive producer Gregg Fienberg; co-executive producers, Buckner, Alexander Woo, Raelle Tucker, Mark Hudis and Angela Robinson; co-producers, Christina Jokanovich, Marlis Pujol and David Auge.

Mixing romance, suspense, mystery and humor, True Blood takes place in a world where vampires and humans co-exist, after vampires have come out of the coffin, thanks to the invention of mass-produced synthetic blood that means they no longer need humans as a nutritional source.

The series follows waitress and part-faerie Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who can hear people's thoughts, vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and vampire Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard).

For more on the series, visit facebook.com/trueblood and twitter.com/TrueBloodHBO or hasthag #trueblood.