247 replies to this topic

[HawtMess]

Quoted from ananti from the episode thread

WIC is reporting that GOT averaged 2.2 million viewers for the initial showing and 4.2 million viewers for the 3 broadcasts combined.

Also Sky Atlantic had 743 K viewers in the UK, which is the highest rating ever on the network and 50% higher than the Boardwalk Empire premier.

ETA:

Season 2 officially announced :http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/04/19/game-of-thrones-renewed/

This post has been edited by ananti: Today @ 11:20 am.

This is awesome news for the show. Keep up the good work HBO

[Meshakhad]

Does anyone know if and when the episodes will be available on iTunes?

[HawtMess]

They aren't already? I thought they'd be by now.

[cutecouple]

As far as I can tell, this is one of the HBO shows that won't be available on iTunes.

[scotti]

Premium cable channels typically don't sell shows via iTunes until months after the given season -- usually timed when a season's DVDs are released. Season 3 of True Blood isn't out, for example, or the latest seasons of Dexter or Weeds. If one could purchase a show off of iTunes during a current season, there'd be little need to be a subscriber.

[cutecouple]

And there are some HBO shows that I still don't see there - Band of Brothers, The Pacific.

[Elli DC]

Is the next Game of Thrones episode on next Sunday? That is Easter, so I'm wondering how much the holiday will affect HBO's scheduling.

And I'm bummed the eps won't be out on iTunes, but I can catch them at a friend's house so no harm there. Almost thought I would have to buy a subscription for a minute!

[Ulle]

Good news about a second season already!

Can anyone explain what kind of viewer numbers the show will "need"? What's considered normal, bad and very good?

[Mormegil]

Can anyone explain what kind of viewer numbers the show will "need"? What's considered normal, bad and very good?

I think they'll be pretty happy with the numbers they got (another 1.2M for the Monday night repeat I believe), there probably will be a drop next week (partly due to Easter) though.

As said Season 2 has already been given the go ahead so it's Season 3 we need to think about and the DVD sales of Season 1 will play a big part in greenlighting that.

[Ulle]

Thank you for your reply.

Is the next Game of Thrones episode on next Sunday? That is Easter, so I'm wondering how much the holiday will affect HBO's scheduling.

According to this there's a new ep on sunday.

[Werthead]

Can anyone explain what kind of viewer numbers the show will "need"? What's considered normal, bad and very good?

If ratings stay as they are, HBO will be very happy. If they drop a bit and then build again by the end of this season and into the next, that will be reasonable. If they drop and stay at a notably lower level throughout the two seasons, HBO might have to scrutinise things more carefully.

However, HBO have made back a bit under 50% of the cost of Season 1 already due to international sales. Assuming those sales are contracted for multiple years, that makes later seasons more attractive: instead of having to spend $50 million out of their own warchest to fund Season 3, for example, they only need $25 million since the rest is taken care of through international sales. I imagine that's in the ballpark of what True Blood costs per year, which is a relatiely cheap show by HBO standards. Don't get me wrong, HBO can't keep GoT going for multiple seasons with less than 1 million viewers like The Wire, but they certainly don't need the massive ratings that it might look like from the budget.

DVD sales will also play a significant role in this. Because of the show's profile with non-HBO subscribers, expect the DVD sales to be very healthy indeed (though I suspect a fair few will have seen the series already through various means, but a great DVD set with excellent extras will still sell well). There'll also be iTunes sales to consider once the series gets on there.

Overall, the series has started well and can withstand a modest (but not too severe) drop in ratings as long as it climbs again (which is what happened to True Blood).

[Impi]

From EW, I think that these are good numbers, I would love to see an increase next week. I hope that word of mouth and critical reviews help to pull in more new viewers.

The second episode of Game of Thrones delivered the same number of viewers as last week’s premiere. Sunday’s 9 p.m. airing was seen by 2.2 million viewers, matching last week. The 11 p.m. repeat drew another 732,000, also in line with premiere night. Meanwhile the first episode has since climbed to 6.8 million thanks to OnDemand and all of HBO’s extra airings.

So is this good news? Bad news? Mostly good…
HBO’s two biggest concerns about Thrones were that viewers either wouldn’t show up for the premiere because the series is (gasp!) fantasy, or they would take one look at the first episode and decide “this isn’t for me.” Neither of those things happened.

Would some growth have been nice? Yeah. But it was also Easter Sunday, so nobody expected the number to leap this week. Now as long as stabbing a certain furry character didn’t turn off too many people…

[Littlelamb86]

I think its good. They did not lose viewers and people are sticking around. Plus, people must like the show if they check it out on OnDemand and repeat airings.

[Featherhat]

Hmm, it's pretty good, at least people aren't tuning out because because it's confusing or they didn't realise it was fantasy or something.

Meanwhile the first episode has since climbed to 6.8 million thanks to OnDemand and all of HBO’s extra airings.

I think this is where the positive word of mouth is coming in, which they will be very pleased with. We'll see what happens when it isn't Easter.
This bodes well for the future as well.

[Kalbear]

2.2 million when there's no lead-in for an HBO show is very good. Most people on HBO don't watch the premiere right away or are fine not watching it. That's really strong. Remember that the ratings for the first show went up by another close to 1mil the next day.

Anyone know what the ratings were on sky? They were insane before this.

[Mod Suit]

Plus, it was a holiday.

[Mormegil]

Anyone know what the ratings were on sky? They were insane before this.

They dropped quite a bit.

http://www.digitalsp...nearly-6m.html#

Game Of Thrones, the new fantasy drama starring Sean Bean, had 531k (2.1%) on Sky Atlantic from 9pm, down 212k on last week's debut episode.

[Werthead]

The adjusted ratings for Sky (including DVR and online) went up to 1.07 million for Episode 1, which is indeed huge. Whenever a Sky drama programme breaks 1 million, even adjusted, it's champagne and parties at Sky HQ. It's happened before (for 24 a few times when it was at the very height of its fame, IIRC) but vanishingly rarely, and certainly for a new channel launched three months ago, it's mind-boggling. Lost, for example, never broke past 600,000, and BSG never got past 300,000.

Episode 2's drop to 530,000 unadjusted was disappointing, though only in the context of the first week insanity. Boardwalk Empire got 400,000 for the first episode, dropped to 200,000 for the second and then stabilised in the mid-100,000s after that, IIRC. Thrones dropping by a third was not as bad. In fact, I was expecting Thrones to drop to maybe 200,000 and stabilise, so the fact it's punching way above that still is impressive.

It's also worth noting that at the moment in the UK we are getting ridiculously hot temperatures, the sort of thing we normally get in July. Add in that it was a Bank Holiday, so most people had the day off, more people might have been chilling out and recorded it instead (Doctor Who was hammered by this as well on Saturday night, losing 2 million viewers over last year's premiere but apparently doing well on legal downloads and timeshifting). The adjusted figures for Thrones will be interesting to see later this week.

[fallingfortruth]

It's also worth mentioning that it was Easter, which does actually pull some people away from their TVs, what with family dinners and everything. I think that it's going to be really huge once it gets rolling, and I'm really interested in how it will do in mainland Europe if/when it gets distributed there.

[TWoP Dietrich]

People have questions about this show, but a thread containing the answers inevitably tends to contain spoilers they didn't want to see.

So let's try this: if you have a question about the show, like "Who's that guy who's always next to Robb Stark?" or "What's so special about King's Landing?" post it here. And if someone sees it and wants to help you out, they'll PM you the answer, rather than posting it here. When you get your answer, edit your question and add something saying that you've received your answer.

This way, people will get exactly what they're looking for without seeing the answers to other people's questions. And the chance of people discussing the details of the answers should be significantly reduced.

[BitchySmurf]

Does anyone know what the ratings for "Lord Snow" were? Did the Obama announcement bring them down?

[Diane114]

I believe they don't come out till Tuesday afternoon. EW's Inside TV will have the report.

I can't imagine the OBL story wouldn't have affected the ratings, at least for the later showing.

[hardy har]

Ratings bump for Lord Snow. BTW, that's just for the initial airing. How long do they typically wait to report on DVR/OnDemand/Repeat viewing?

Anyway: Booya.

Edited by hardy har, May 3, 2011 @ 10:36 AM.

[Shiny Objects]

That's great! I was worried that the Bin Laden announcement would have somewhat decreased the ratings, at least on the west coast.

[Ulle]

Great news, but what a strange way to phrase it. "Ratings rise for the first time." It was the third episode, there has only been one other opportunity for the ratings to rise... "For the first time" makes it sound like it's a bubble show, with a sudden, and unexpected, possible whiff of hope.

Still, maybe with rising ratings they'll extend next season by a couple of episodes... That's a whiff of hope I'd welcome.

[Scrapper]

The entertainment weekly writers have gotten worse in the last few years. I'm not sure what's going on there. At least the online content. Maybe they are using free lancers to save money and not enough research or editing is being done.

[Maximum Taco]

Just a quick addition to help along those seeking answers.

The following sites provide a great background on anything A Song of Ice and Fire related. Browse at your own caution, they are all chock full of spoilers from books 1-4 (some but not many from book 5 as well)

Westeros - The Flagship fansite, and the closest thing to endorsed by the author as you can get. Contains links to almost every other reputable fansite

Tower of the Hand - An encyclopaedia and community all wrapped into one. Includes essays readers have published on characters, past events, and future speculation. A great part of this site is that it allows you to specify what Books you've read and what episodes you've seen in the "Scope" box and will block out spoilers based on that. (For instance if you say you haven't read or seen any books/episodes, all you'll get on character searches are the basics, Name, Title, Holdings etc.) Even the essays are covered by this spoiler protection. The only thing NOT policed by the spoiler protection are comments made by users on essays and publications.

A Wiki of Ice and Fire - In wiki form! Not up to date on everything, but all the major players are usually up to book 4. Tends to be a little more in depth in places than Tower of the Hand. Separates spoilers based on book, but does not block them out like the Tower does. Has started to include pictures from the TV series so you can match the name to the face.

Edited by Maximum Taco, May 3, 2011 @ 12:43 PM.

[Elehop]

These websites are aimed at those who have already read most, if not all, of the books. Dipping into them looking for the item of info that you're after will mean a host of spoilers.

I don't recommend them if people only want a specific and short amount of information.

HBO viewers guide all the way!

[SockMonkeh]

The only one of those links that I can recommend is Tower of the Hand (because of their book-level spoiler system described above). You are guaranteed to spoil important twists for yourself if you spend any amount of time at the other websites. You will probably also be spoiled by the PMs you get in this thread because I have a feeling that people will still be overly informative in their PMs. My honest advice to anyone who is confused about something in the show at this point is: you are supposed to be, just keep watching. Maybe look at the official HBO supplementary information since it's designed around the show.

[fallingfortruth]

For the record, I've been checking this thread every day since it was created, and I'm an old fandom hand... I can resist my urge to share everything about a topic and just give the information necessary. Even if just writing "That's Theon Greyjoy." kills me in the soul a little.