[NO SPOILERS] Ratings and Demographics

[Ran]

A place to discuss the reported ratings and demographic results concerning the show's episodes, as well as analysis of same from around the web.

[TargaryenFanboy]

EW says the 15 minute preview got 720,000 viewers. That's a low number. We need to ALL subscribe to HBO. Lets all be salesmen and marketers for our favorite show.

[End of Disc One]

EW says the 15 minute preview got 720,000 viewers. That's a low number. We need to ALL subscribe to HBO. Lets all be salesmen and marketers for our favorite show.

I, who have been following this show very closely compared to the average TV viewer, didn't even know about the preview until shortly before it was on. They didn't advertise it very well.

[Abaddon]

EW says the 15 minute preview got 720,000 viewers. That's a low number. We need to ALL subscribe to HBO. Lets all be salesmen and marketers for our favorite show.

I am not sure how it can be considered a low number when HBO has never (ever) done anything like this before to compare it to.

[Asha—Not Yara!]

I don't think the preview numbers are a cause for concern. The majority of interested people probably watched it online and the 720,000 mostly reflects the people tuning in for Mildred Pierce and getting a surprise. ;) I was however one of those people who tuned in on purpose to see the preview, but I bet most fans either caught it online or watched it via HBOs On Demand the next day.

[morbiczer]

From what I read The Borgias had around 1 million viewers, and that was described as a very good result for the show. 700.000 for a preview that you can watch legally on the internet doesn't sound so bad in comparison to me.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

TV by the Numbers has started putting up GoT numbers as well. It's the same ~720k as listed in EW, but they also go through and compare it to a few other shows during the week, as well as, for example, True Blood's premiere numbers. They acknowledge that this was a preview and not a premiere, but still don't expect huge numbers on the 17th.

It'd be interesting to see what sorts of figures HBO might have if they added in distinct visitors to the main sources online, too (assuming the 720k number is purely TV). They'll never get every source, and they'll probably count people more than once inadvertently, but I wonder what the numbers are. One commenter on another site was claiming 50k hits on their page alone. Even if only 10% are individuals, that's still an additional 5k for the total.

[Ran]

I think these numbers are somewhat useless to determine anything by. Hard to control what factors led to it, or what it even means. HBO has never done a 15 minute preview before, so we've nothing to compare against on their network.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Oh, I agree with TVbtN in that it's "a whole bunch of nothing" right now, though I personally think 700k+ viewers for a preview is pretty good. I just want to 1) reference it as a site for future ratings reportings, it appears, and 2) say that I think it's interesting to see the other shows' numbers as well.

[Ran]

I know, sorry, should have just said I was trying to add that context that HBO's never done it. It's something they pointed out somewhere or other. TV By the Numbers also tried to compare it to the Teen Wolf 15 minute trailer on MTV, which drew 5 million, but MTV has triple the subscription base, not counting its sister networks, and they put in heavy advertising. Plus the nostalgia factor...

It'll be interesting to see where the premiere comes in. Fingers crossed. :)

[Abaddon]

Ratings are nice, but subs are more important. I am hoping for a nice announcement sometime soon after the 17th indicating HBO is happy with the new subs attached to the show and are greenlighting season 2 :).

Keeping the fingers crossed...

[Humble Asskicker]

It's concerning. I think it demonstrates how very little an impact these fan sites have on ratings. Anyone who has visited this site or Winter-is-Coming recently would have been aware of the preview. Some of them could have resisted, but I doubt that's true for most of us. I know I did everything I could to watch it, even though my HBO wasn't set up until the following day. I do think that this demonstrates a very good idea of the interest thus far.

There's a lot going against this show. It's not a known fantasy, like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and Twilight. It doesn't attract the tween crowd. The crowd it does target probably would hear "Game of Thrones" and think what a really lame-ass title that is. Then when they find out that it's a "mature" fantasy, the rest of their interest evaporates, because fantasy is supposed to be for kids. Harry Potter made fantasy for kids fine to enjoy, but fantasy intended for an adult audience is reserved for the nerd crowd. None of the previews I've seen have made much of a difference (except the first fourteen minutes, which were badass, but I think would generate fairly mixed reactions for those who don't know what's ahead).

Overcoming this prejudice is a Herculean task.

It's concerning, but not the end of the world. As has been noted, the preview wasn't advertised very well. I had to watch it at a friend's house. He's also a fan, and he has HBO, but knew nothing about the preview until I told him. There was absolutely no indication that it would be on at that time slot, and unless you spotted an advertisement you wouldn't have any idea it was coming.

The premiere probably won't have too many viewers because of the inherent mistrust of a new fantasy franchise that doesn't aim at the lowest common denominator. I think the only chance this show has is if it gets enough critical buzz. If critics left and right are announcing how fantastic this show is, perhaps people will give it a chance and it will build in numbers.

Then again, it could go the route of The Wire - best show on tv that no one watches. Unfortunately, that would cut the lifespan of GoT very short indeed.

Gotta say, I'm nervous. I really want this show to at least hit season three, but who knows what will happen. The rule of thumb should be: enjoy what you get, and bank your hopes instead on Dance with Dragons being kickass.

[Kat]

Seriously, though, how many non-geeks go out of their way to watch a 15-minute preview of a show, rather than just picking up the pilot when it actually airs? This show has been generating a lot of buzz in other media, e.g. Entertainment Weekly, various TV critics, etc. People will watch it who didn't decide they were excited enough to order HBO two weeks early so they could watch a preview and then wait.

I consider myself a geek, but before this show, I have never gone out of my way to look for special previews of shows not yet aired. You have to have a special kind of anticipation to do that, and it's not really necessary for a show to be a hit.

[ZombieWife]

Perhaps some people chose not to watch the 15 minute preview as well, opting to wait for the first episode.

I agree that there hasn't been much PR about this 15 minute preview. If I hadn't come to this board, I would have missed it entirely.

[TerraPrime]

Does HBO have the ability to check which of their subscribers watch which show? Is our satellite/cable company forwarding that information to them?

[Abaddon]

Pretty sure all of the viewership info is based on Nielson ratings, just like everyone else. They have their own methods of determining how many subscribers a particular show is "responsible" for, that is (I believe) proprietary but likely based more on things like surveys, etc than any data from the service provider.

[Trebla]

One thing about the preview was that it wasn't even listed on the TV Listings Guide on the my cable. It was just listed at Mildred Pierce. I couldn't specifically schedule to DVR it, I had to schedule to DVR Mildred Pierce. I ended up just manually recording it, though it is already available on the On Demand Top Picks.

[Ecclesiastes]

I had the exact same experience as the above poster.

How can HBO expect any kind of rating when not only did they not advertize it but they didn't even put it on the schedule.

I specifically searched for it in my cable guide search function and the only station it showed up on was HBOOLE which is a Spanish speaking channel. The version I DVRed has subtitles on it as a result.

The fact of the matter is that the true test of interest will be on the 17th. There has been a ton of advertizing for that date. If those numbers are low it will be cause for concern but the ratings for the 15 min preview simply need to be taken with a HUGE grain of salt.

[Ran]

I don't know that HBO had any particular expectations. As they note, they've never done this before. They have no baseline to compare it to. They'll probably use this experience to inform their approach when they do something like this again. Or maybe they'll decide that it's not really worth it.

[Flou]

I wouldn't worry about those preview ratings nor would I worry about the premiere ratings. In the end what matters are

1) HBO's own statistics: How many new subscripers did they get with GoT.

2) International sales: How much money can they get for selling the rights for the series

3) DVD, Blu-Ray and merchandise sales: Even low ratings and low amount of new subscripers won't matter if the season 1 blu-ray and dvd sales are great. There's a quite enthusiastic fanbase all ready waiting for these and they haven't even aired a single episode.... Buy the damn boxsets when they come out and I'm sure we will get a season 3 as well :)