Beyonce proved a huge draw for HBO on Saturday night: the film is the cable network’s most-watched documentary effort in nearly 10 years.

The intimate documentary about the singer, “Beyonce: Life is But a Dream,” pulled 1.8 million viewers during its inaugural outing at 9 p.m. ET. It’s the largest audience for a HBO doc since Nielsen revised its method of measuring viewership in 2004.

The only other documentary to approach Beyonce’s haul was previous record-setter “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.” The Spike Lee miniseries about the devastation caused to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina earned 1.7 million viewers in 2006.

“Life is But a Dream” pulled three times the ratings of recent first-runs for HBO’s Sunday series “Girls.” [Billboard.biz]