What kind of TV ratings does the series need to be sustainable at least into a second season?

[The Anti-Targ]

Talking of US ratings of course. If it makes it in the US then it will either get picked up or not in other markets (Gods I hope it comes here if so, though no doubt if it does become a multi-season success then I'll more than likely be buying the DVDs).

So a rating for the pilot and regular viewership week on week for long term viability of...

1 million?
2 million?
5 million?
10 million?
More?

In other words, how much word of mouth promotion will be required from the US and Canada based legion of the faithful?

[Ran]

[i]True Blood[/i] has a Sunday viewership of about 2.35 million viewers (up from 1.44 million on its premier), but across the week (with On Demand, repeat viewings, etc.) it's pulling in something like 6.8 million for an episode.

I can't find out what [i]True Blood[/i]'s budget is, and we can only speculate on what the budget of GoT would be, but I think that something north of 7 million per episode (including repeats) would be a hopeful figure to achieve.

[psim]

I imagine that HBO would be pretty happy with getting the True Blood viewership, at least I remember reading recently that apart from the Sopranos and SATC I think True Blood is HBO's third most watched series so far...

(Of course I don't really have any viewership statistics to compare that with so it might have been from some press release trying to make the numbers seem better than they are...)

[Ran]

Shows like [i]Rome[/i] got bigger first-airing figures, but for various reasons it seems that further airings over week have not picked up as much as [i]True Blood[/i]. This is, probably, because On Demand and such things did not exist or were little used at the that the show aired. But, given that, one would imagine that if [i]True Blood[/i] had aired around the same time, its first airing numbers would be higher because people would watch then rather than having the option of watching later as readily.

[Tyro Lannister]

I'm curious to see a breakdown of how an episode could cost so much, if anything I'd like to know how much of that would likely just be the actors pay?

[ulix]

Rome had a budget of about 100 million $ for its first season, which equals about 8 million per episode.
So I guess you can expect an episode of GoT to have a budget of at least 5 million, though of course this is just unfounded guesswork.

Especially concerning Ice & Fire I have to disagree with the assumption that the actor's salaries won't matter much.
I mean look at other ensemble pieces, how big is their ensemble? 20, maybe 30 recurring characters?
Ice & Fire would have at least that many in its pilot alone, even if they stay in Winterfell and leave Daenaerys' story out. And this would be just WInterfell and a few Lannisters (and Robert), then there would also be the Wall and King's Landing for the first season, and of course the east, equalling at, lets say 80 or so recurring actors in the first season.

This is BIG! And incredibly expensive.

[Venardhi]

Most of those recurring characters wont be pulling in big paychecks, as they only get paid for the episodes they're in, whereas the regulars (the names in the credits) get paid even if they aren't in an episode, or only show up for one scene or two in the background. The downsize of having such a large recurring cast though is scheduling conflicts will be a bigger issue, unless they plan to film the whole series at once rather than an episode at a time.

[Rinso]

A huge chunk of these 80 recurring actors would be no-names and extras for the smallest roles in the background. They are not gonna be so expensive.

[The Mance]

I wonder how much credit is given to the volume of new and used book sales when predicting viewership of book based TV and movie events.

Seems to me like sales volume for the forth book in series ought ot be a pretty good indicator of how many people are irretrievable hooked on that particular series.




*awaits number crunching by the so inclined*

[b09boy]

I'd like to point out that, especially due to HBO often not filming in a firm timeline, viewers are not the only things HBO makes money off of and looks at. Much of their money comes from DVD sales as well.

[Ran]

The Mance,

Charlaine Harris has sold 1.75 million books worldwide, but that's across all her books (the Southern Vampire series seems to be the most popular, and the 7 books at the time of that quote probably made up the lion's share of the sales). George is reputed to have sold over 2 million copies of just ASoIaF, OTOH.

[i]True Blood[/i] opened with a 1.44 million first-airing viewership. But one can't say how many of those were Harris fans and how many were just interested by the marketing campaign, the premise, etc.

b09boy,

True, but:

1) Viewership probably relates closely to DVD purchasing -- if no one's watching the show, it's not likely many people are interested in DVD sales.

2) They can't know if a low-rated show will have outsize DVD sales, so the show has to manage at least a season pick-up on its own two feet. Then everyone needs to run out and buy the DVDs as soon as they're released, if HBO is teetering about a second season.

[The Mance]

[quote name='Ran' post='1593731' date='Nov 19 2008, 00.50']Charlaine Harris has sold 1.75 million books worldwide, but that's across all her books (the Southern Vampire series seems to be the most popular, and the 7 books at the time of that quote probably made up the lion's share of the sales). George is reputed to have sold over 2 million copies of just ASoIaF, OTOH.[/quote]

Those sound like promising numbers. Hopefully there's a huge crossover between epic fantasy readers and HBO subscribers.

[Jon Targaryen]

I honestly think acclaim and buzz are more important than ratings though usually good reviews go along with good ratings, I suppose. As I understand it, HBO doesn't depend on viewers tuning in and sitting through the advertisers. HBO depends on subscriptions which come because people want or "think they want" the content on HBO. If GOT gets rave reviews it might drive people to subscribe to HBO or at least HBO might think that is what is driving people to subscribe, which is the same thing to me.

[Ran]

One interesting effect if GoT gets a full season pickup is that George's ASoIaF backlist will get a sales boost. Harris's latest book debuted in June I think at #6 on the NYT list, dropped off it in a couple of weeks ... and now is [i]back[/i] on it, and all the paperbacks of the previous books are on it as well, because of [i]True Blood[/i].

But anyways, viewership relates to buzz. The more fans, the more people telling other people they should watch, the more subscribers, etc. If there's little excitement, it'll be a problem.

[Brude]

[quote name='Ran' post='1593731' date='Nov 19 2008, 03.50']2) They can't know if a low-rated show will have outsize DVD sales, so the show has to manage at least a season pick-up on its own two feet. Then everyone needs to run out and buy the DVDs as soon as they're released, if HBO is teetering about a second season.[/quote]
This is why I think HBO is stupid for not selling episodes via iTunes, and doing so early, like while the series is still airing. There is a large market out there, many of my friends included, who do not own cable, won't get cable but would love to keep up with the series more-or-less while I am and would pay to download from iTunes for that chance. Some shows like that "Studio 60" did not do so well in ratings and got canceled before their run was up, but what the network didn't take into account was how many iTunes downloads that show got - it was a huge hit there and from what I have heard (I haven't checked the figures myself) maybe enough so to have saved the show had they not already struck the sets by the time they realized it.

[koudoulis]

[quote name='Brudewollen' post='1595090' date='Nov 20 2008, 08.39']This is why I think HBO is stupid for not selling episodes via iTunes, and doing so early, like while the series is still airing. There is a large market out there, many of my friends included, who do not own cable, won't get cable but would love to keep up with the series more-or-less while I am and would pay to download from iTunes for that chance. Some shows like that "Studio 60" did not do so well in ratings and got canceled before their run was up, but what the network didn't take into account was how many iTunes downloads that show got - it was a huge hit there and from what I have heard (I haven't checked the figures myself) maybe enough so to have saved the show had they not already struck the sets by the time they realized it.[/quote]

this piece of information warms my heart
thanx

i dont know.. i kinda think that the trailer alone could be a magnificent hook if done right. maybe its my objective perspective but how could any sane person resist that.. fantasy fans and the rest , its the same . everybody liked the LotR movies. just make it plain thats this is a better , more complex show with comparable (tv to cinema) production values.