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The Wars to Come Hits Series High Despite Piracy


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The premiere of “The Wars to Come”—our written review is still forthcoming, but we’ve posted our usual video review (some minor audio and editing glitches—new workflow, new camera!—but those are brief)—has not only become the highest rated premiere episode of Game of Thrones;, but the highest rated episode, period, with nearly 8 million viewers. As Variety notes, that’s about 800,000 more than its second highest rated episode, “Mockingbird”. And across the pond, Sky Atlantic in the UK reported that their airing on Monday was also their highest rated episode ever, with 1.6 million viewers in the overnight rating.

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I wonder if HBO will release the rest of those spoiled episodes on their streaming service. That's one way to combat the leaks. However they are too concerned with ratings to ever make this happen. From comments I've read, most people will still watch episodes on TV /computer to enjoy show in a better quality format. If anything, it's seems to have generated positive buzz for the rest of the season. Unfortunate that it happened but thankfully not much damage SEEMS to have been made.

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I saw an interview with D&D where they said they were glad people pirated GoTs in Spain, because the show had no Spanish distribution and it made filming easier when they had so many fans in country. It seems D&D are more aware of the future of entertainment media than their employers are :D

HBO should just release the whole series as a digital package, on a set date for a fixed price, so that people can obtain it globally and equitably. If they want, they can watermark it to try and track customers that infringe copyright. Old style distribution models, like television and cinema are crumbling as we watch. Digital media cannot be controlled, only offered to the broadest customer base for fair value - HBO should get ahead of the curve now, rather than playing the catch up game like everyone else.

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I have Foxtel to watch GoTs on, only coz the mrs needs to watch her sport and you have to keep the mrs happy :) I do understand that it represents a very biased distribution model for GoTs in Australia.

What I also find is quite biased, is that the simultaneous broadcast is according to New York's Sunday evening? How is that globally equitable - it means the countries that are ahead of the US in time have to watch it when they should be at work. Why not base it on GMT, or something that is considered a global time frame. Better still, schedule according to local times.

GoTs is still a product and giving the customer what they want, in this case the freedom to view how and when they want, remains the best way to profit from a product.

I'm increasingly certain the only reason that studios are so keen on distributing things the old fashioned way is to take advertising into account. Gotta' find a way to keep shoving adverts down a consumers throat. Otherwise, I'm sure HBO could make more out of charging individuals for a copy of GoTs per season then it can through 3rd part subscription services - and it's environmentally friendly, coz there are no boxes, carbon emissions for transport and all that other good stuff.

Ultimately, we all want to see GoTs get made and the people involved get paid - and HBO has an opportunity, considering how globally popular the show has become, to define a better global distribution model for themselves and the customer. (I won't go as far as say all, because I think advertising companies, distribution companies and TV networks will eventually have to suffer - but they are either middle men or redundant tech).

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For the episode review:

On the Varys-Illyrio 'Conspiracy', or what ever it is.

I would not be surprised if there were other parties involved in the deal.

(By deal I mean besides the 'Griff-thing', which may fissile.)

Could Varys-Illyrio really pull off a big scheme without any help?

I know GRRM has not told us yet, but some of the things the show does , main characters dying, are these blow-back spoiler from the future prose narrative since the show runners know the 'broad strokes'?

Why was the Iron Bank thrown into the fray, so to speak?

What was the Iron Bank's relation with the Targaryens? Were they more reliable.

They have a bet placed with Stannis, but heck what bank is not going to place a bet on every horse?

It's the bottom line they are after.

So I could see the Varys-Illyrio thing having the Iron Bank as a silent partner and we just have not gotten there yet in the last two books.

*I sometimes wonder about the 'broad strokes' in the Dave-Dan-Bryan meetings do they say "Well George, we need to know, does this or that character play a role in the end-game?", in that way 'broad stokes' become important details.

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I saw an interview with D&D where they said they were glad people pirated GoTs in Spain, because the show had no Spanish distribution and it made filming easier when they had so many fans in country. It seems D&D are more aware of the future of entertainment media than their employers are :D

HBO should just release the whole series as a digital package, on a set date for a fixed price, so that people can obtain it globally and equitably. If they want, they can watermark it to try and track customers that infringe copyright. Old style distribution models, like television and cinema are crumbling as we watch. Digital media cannot be controlled, only offered to the broadest customer base for fair value - HBO should get ahead of the curve now, rather than playing the catch up game like everyone else.

Disagree. Releasing it all at once means that they lose 11 weeks of advertising and revenue that comes with airing their hit show weekly.

People want them to do it, but there really is no upside for HBO, so there's no chance of it ever happening. They aren't going to stop piracy, and they know it. But they are ahead of the curve by releasing HBO Now, giving people without cable the opportunity to watch the show legally by paying for it. I have friends that just signed up for it that were using my Go account to watch the show...there's money in HBO's pocket that they didn't have before. But there's no advantage to releasing the entire season at once.

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HBO should just release the whole series as a digital package, on a set date for a fixed price, so that people can obtain it globally and equitably. If they want, they can watermark it to try and track customers that infringe copyright. Old style distribution models, like television and cinema are crumbling as we watch. Digital media cannot be controlled, only offered to the broadest customer base for fair value - HBO should get ahead of the curve now, rather than playing the catch up game like everyone else.

But they do, it's called a DVD.

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What I also find is quite biased, is that the simultaneous broadcast is according to New York's Sunday evening? How is that globally equitable - it means the countries that are ahead of the US in time have to watch it when they should be at work. Why not base it on GMT, or something that is considered a global time frame. Better still, schedule according to local times.

I think simultaneous broadcast is a good thing because it's the only way we can avoid spoilers. In my country it's 3 AM monday morning when GOT is broadcast. And I check the episode before I go to work and before I check facebook or this forum. In 2014 they waited until it was sunday 9 PM in my country and that was almost one week later. One week avoiding internet is not possible in this global world we live in now. Certainly not with episodes like the Red Wedding.

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But they do, it's called a DVD.

The DVDs, as far as I know, are released up to a year after the initial release, which, to me, makes them kind of irrelevant. If they'd release them like a month after the season's end, it'd be great.

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sj4iy,



so you are saying that advertising revenue is worth more than the product is if sold to a the consumer without advertising? I suspected this but my ultimate attitude is fuck advertising - we don't need it. If we want to buy something, we can research the various options for ourselves, in our own time. Advertising, to me, is a concept that is fundamentally intrusive and a wasteful.



boojam,



yes, or Blu Ray, which is better quality - but for some reason the lag with GoTs to get to the Blu Ray stage is huge. I can understand 3 months, the time it takes for most films - but 12 months, what is the reason for this? The only one I can think of is to increase potential advertising revenue, which brings me back to the point above.



Chilli,



What I suggest is that if the air time is 9.00 pm on Sunday evening, it should be aired locally at that time, on the same date, across the globe. The most viewers could be out of sync is about 12 hrs, 8 of which they would likely be sleeping for. Certainly viewers can avoid facebook for a few hours and this way each country in the world would see GoTs at a comfortable time.


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boojam,

yes, or Blu Ray, which is better quality - but for some reason the lag with GoTs to get to the Blu Ray stage is huge. I can understand 3 months, the time it takes for most films - but 12 months, what is the reason for this? The only one I can think of is to increase potential advertising revenue, which brings me back to the point above.

Well here in Belgium you can either watch it via HBO channel on Telenet distribution (and I'm using a competition distribution, including unlimited internet and house phone, with service of a 3rd party... way cheaper) OR we can watch it on a national channel 2BE that bought the series (and Black Sails, and Spartacus, and Vikings). With the HBO channel on Telenet their customers can watch it now, but for other Belgians we have to wait until October-November this year in order to watch season 5 (with advertising every 10 mins, so I digicord it to skip that). The DVDs aren't released until after it's been aired on these channels all over the world, and that's why it takes a year. If they release the DVDs sooner than it can be aired on a national TV channel, they'll be in breach with their selling contract. As for HBO Now... I have the stupid mousepointer freeze laptop issue whenever I stream something for a longer time, and nobody has been able to solve that yet.

I'm not going to jump distribution and I'm not going to wait until fall to watch S5, not buying a new laptop either. Guess what I'm doing? I do buy the DVDs when they come out though to pay my dues, and re-watch.

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Wow, sweetsunray, Belgium may have distribution options as shitty as Australia's :)



And yes, what you describing is consistent with what I am suspecting - GoTs has various global distribution contracts in place, all of which stand to loose a lot in advertising revenue if distribution models get changed. None of this is in the viewer's/consumers best interest, however.



This is why I suggest GoTs, that has become so globally popular, is a prime example to test bed a better way forward on. Studios that produce entertainment media are at a crossroads where they have to decide whether they would rather support the customer or related business interest.


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sj4iy,

yes, or Blu Ray, which is better quality - but for some reason the lag with GoTs to get to the Blu Ray stage is huge. I can understand 3 months, the time it takes for most films - but 12 months, what is the reason for this? The only one I can think of is to increase potential advertising revenue, which brings me back to the point above.

O man! That next year DvD release thing still puzzles everybody. The current season is never ready for Christmas , and that's a biz model that's a real bumfuzzler.

HBO seems to think there is more interest in seeing last season on DvD just before the next season, that passes beyond my understanding.

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Yeah, basically it's 3rd party interests: distribution networks and channels get their revenue from adverts (except the state owned national tv channels), and they pay big money for to buy the airing of the series. Since recent years some channels have been started up to cater particularly for public (like HBO Channel), but only certain distribution networks get to air it, demanding exclusivity rights and paying lots of money for that. The streaming service is (after Netflox) the newer version, but again it works via particular distribution (with restrictions on where you live or what type of device you own).



It seems to me that there's so much money to be made from the middleman (distribution networks, brand of devices, channels) that they would perceive it as a loss if they went HBO-customer directly and globally. Even with piracy their revenue is high enough from the middleman to take that loss. DVDs are the extra and to get new viewers interested who haven't watched the aired seasons yet. I suspect that most who do the pirating are avid fans who get on the internet to discuss stuff (books and show). Most of those buy the DVDs anyway, like myself, and get others hitched on it too ("Oh, you must watch that... here I'll lend you my first box". My best friend got hooked that way, LOL).



I would be over the moon with your idea. I'm often a late one when it comes to starting to watch a series on TV, or I forget the day it's being aired, or have something else to do and can't be bothered to find out where or when I have to digicord it. And then I'm also impatient. I'm one of those readers who first reads the first chapter of a book, then the last, and finally, everything else in the middle. So, I prefer watching a series in one go, from start to finish, in a week's time. For myself, I was kinda lucky that I didn't watch S1 before last summer when I picked up the first box. Bought S2 and S3 two days later. Bought the books a week later. Had read all those by the time S4 aired by the fall. Which I then taped week after week, and I didn't watch it until I could do so in one long go. So, on the one hand I can hold off, but once I start watching, I hate the "wait another week". Mind waiting a month or a year much less. LOL


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Screw middlemen - seriously - what do they actually produce? They are not in a symbiotic relationship with either the studios or the viewers, they are leaches that need to be burnt and removed (Half joking) :D

Yes, but it's the middlement that pay for the rights to show the series with huge sums at least for one season. Producers are sure of the income for a year or the payback of their production investment. Irregardless of the number of actual viewers, the money is in for the producers. And when viewer ratings are too low, they have time to decide to pull the plug on the series. If they have to rely on the viewer paying directly, then they're return of investment is not ensured.

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No return on investment is ever truly ensured sweetsunray, otherwise it would be a purchase and not an investment :D



I do get what you are saying though, that pre selling to the middlemen (distributors) funds the next season. And GoTs is paid for then, by the distributors, so whether someone pirates or views via a distributor makes no difference to HBO - for that season, anyway. Everyone on HBO's books has been paid, long before any torrents appear.



But the questions remains - if the distributors can afford to pay more than what GoTs (and other HBO shows) is estimated to be worth if sold directly to viewers, what makes up the value of the difference? The only answer is advertising revenue, which itself is based on the promise of a consumer buying an advertised product in the future.



Ultimately, the struggle to stop people pirating and get people watching on established distribution channels is not about ripping artists off. It's not really even about ripping distributors off. It's about viewer control - it is about making sure that consumers are subjected to the desired level of advertising.



I agree with paying fair value for a product, I'm not sure I'll ever agree with being subjected to advertisement or see that it has any worth. If you have decided you like Pepsi, does seeing Coke advertised really change your mind and, if it does, is it possible your mind is no longer really yours to control?


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The leak shouldn't have happened, but common, I don't think it did any real "damage" to the series.


Its not season 1 or 2, pretty everybody is hooked to it by now and most people will watch it on TV and


buy the DVDs afterwards anyways.


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I'm Australian. I work in the movie industry so I can afford it, but to the people who work blue-collar jobs Fuck Foxtel for their high prices and fuck HBO for not caring for their international viewers bye signing the exclusive deal. I would have happily paid 15 dollars per month for HBO Now instead of 15 dollars per week for a cable service I only watch for entertainment and sports

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