[NO SPOILERS] Ratings and Demographics

[julandro]

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.

Are we crazy? preview 15 minutes, followed by 720,000 spectators, is great news. Do you know which is the first result of the Borgias? 1,020,000 viewers and it seems, is a good result for the channel showtime

[julandro]

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

I also want to know.

The sale of rights to the series, is sufficient to amortize the costs. HBO is a brand name and has been very successful with sales in other countries.

Sales of DVD and Blu-Ray.

"Rome" sold many DVDs, it is possible that the "Game of Thrones" has the same sales, you can even cope.

Remember that HBO is a prestigious channel sales success achieved elsewhere.

[MirriMaz]

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.

i think they would want ratings similar to what they got with Boardwalk Empire, so probably an average of 3 three million viewers. They are probably not expecting True Blood numbers because that in itself is a phenomenon and of course vampires are in at the moment.

Season 2 is defenitely happening, but i worry about the budget. if they sense that it's not going to be successful they might spend less on the show and that would affect the quality especially with all the battles.

At the moment i'm more concerned about the numbers than the show, i've seen enough to know that the show will be great and now all i want is for the ratings to be decent.

[reiver]

Maybe its a level of geeky crossover but i've seen the preview mentioned on at least 3 other sites i regularly go to, all of which have nothing to do with GoT. Two i've never seen mention the books or series before; a Uk bodybuilding website and a PC gaming website. It's definitely out there and being talked about.

[Tywin's bastard]

i think they would want ratings similar to what they got with Boardwalk Empire, so probably an average of 3 three million viewers. They are probably not expecting True Blood numbers because that in itself is a phenomenon and of course vampires are in at the moment.

Season 2 is defenitely happening, but i worry about the budget. if they sense that it's not going to be successful they might spend less on the show and that would affect the quality especially with all the battles.

At the moment i'm more concerned about the numbers than the show, i've seen enough to know that the show will be great and now all i want is for the ratings to be decent.

The budget (both current and future) will perhaps demand more of GoT but True Blood didn't have great ratings during the first season. That was show that grew with the buzz.

[Ran]

Ratings expectations for a summer show are probably also going to be somewhat different from a spring show.

[guyminuslife]

Are we crazy? preview 15 minutes, followed by 720,000 spectators, is great news. Do you know which is the first result of the Borgias? 1,020,000 viewers and it seems, is a good result for the channel showtime

Yeah, it's sort of like, people are saying, "The preview wasn't promoted enough!" Well, duh. The preview was a promotion. Do they have to show ads for their ads now? How many layers of ads do you show? "On April 7th, we will reveal...a promotional message....that will reveal the nature of a commercial...in which viewers will be enticed to view a trailer...for a movie that explains why they should watch a television series...which is pitched toward selling something."

[The Anti-Targ]

This poll asked the question about GoT ratings, and shows some of the ratings from previous HBO offerings.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/04/17/hbos-game-of-thrones-winter-is-coming-will-the-ratings-be-frigid-poll/89735

Show Date 18-49 Viewers

Boardwalk Empire S1 Premiere 9/19/2010 2.0, 4.81

Boardwalk Empire S1 Finale 12/5/2010 1.3, 3.29

True Blood S1 Premiere 9/17/2008 0.7, 1.44

True Blood S2 Premiere 6/14/2009 2.0, 3.70

True Blood S3 Premiere 6/13/2010 2.9, 5.10

Entourage S6 Premiere 7/12/2009 1.9, 3.40

Entourage S7 Premiere 6/27/2010 1.5, 2.48

The Pacific Premiere 3/14/2010 1.1, 3.08

The Pacific Finale 5/16/2010 0.7, 1.96

Interestingly everything goes down except for True Blood.

The GoT poll has most people picking quite high ratings. I think if it does about what True Blood did in its season 1 opener it'll be pretty good.

ETA, the final number is the number of viewers in millions. I dunno what the penultimate number is, some kind of ratio regarding the 18-49 year old demographic? Which demographic I presume is very much the target audience for GoT and all those shows mentioned. Apparently the GoT preview for a 0.9 for the 18-49 agegroup, whatever that means, I assume the higher the number the better???

[Trebla]

I'm anxiously awaiting the ratings. :unsure:

[Lord Godric]

They'll probably be released tomorrow, but I too am anxiously awaiting.

[Whitebeard]

According to Winter is Coming, GOT premiered with a 1.6.

thoughts?

[julandro]

Nooooooo. Are we talking of possible failure? 1.6 million viewers is very little.

[Kat]

Nooooooo. Are we talking of possible failure? 1.6 million viewers is very little.

Rating of 1.6 is not the same as 1.6 million viewers; it's higher than that. Scroll up thread to The Anti-Targ's post about ratings from previous HBO shows.

The numbers will probably also go up, because that's only for people watching it live rather than On Demand, on DVRs, etc.

[Kalbear]

A 1.6 for HBO is good. Not great, but good.

Keep in mind the following:

HBO shows and reshows and shows a show on demand a billion times during the week. They don't care about keeping people glued in on Sunday at 9.

HBO doesn't care about ratings specifically at all except amongst their subscribers. 1.6 is very close to what they got for Boardwalk Empire.

HBO cares far more about the ratings as a series, not as a specific show. If the premiere does well but the subsequent eps do not, that's a far worse sign (see: Rome, Carnivale). If the premiere does okay but the ratings stay about that or get better, that's a far better sign. Put it another way: if AGOT stays at 1.6 it'll get picked up.

HBO also cares a hell of a lot about buzzworthiness. They want people talking about it, they want people seeing it, they want critics applauding it. This is also more important than ratings, at least directly.

Remember, HBO makes money off of subscriptions and DVD sales. Ratings are a vague way to gauge those things, but only just.

[Xenophon]

Rating of 1.6 is not the same as 1.6 million viewers; it's higher than that. Scroll up thread to The Anti-Targ's post about ratings from previous HBO shows.

The numbers will probably also go up, because that's only for people watching it live rather than On Demand, on DVRs, etc.

Also, were those ratings for all 3 showings, or only the first? I imagine that would make a difference, especially as the Celtics-Knicks game conflicted with the first showing.

[Ran]

It's a 1.6 household rating, meaning 1.9 million households, which means more than that for total viewership -- possibly just around 3 millions viewers. And yes, that's only the first showing.

This was an evening where almost everything on the networks was down, probably due to the basketball game, and this may have impacted GoT as well. The numbers may tick up at 10 and 11, and then of course we have today's showings.

HBO will release their full figures, including cumulative viewership (which is the really important one -- what matters to them is that subscribers watch the thing at some point, not necessarily that they watch it all at the same time), on Tuesday.

I don't really think there's any cause to panic. With so many viewing options, and the big game on, people may have just put off watching it to a later showing or to Monday.

[julandro]

I am very pessimistic. Everything indicates that the premiere has failed. It is very sad that Americans do not know how to value these series. They are very rare.

[The Anti-Targ]

It's a 1.6 household rating, meaning 1.9 million households, which means more than that for total viewership -- possibly just around 3 millions viewers. And yes, that's only the first showing.

Well 3 million viewers for the premier is in line with most of the shows in my above post. So I figure that's got to be seen as a very good result for the first showing. And look at True Blood season 1 vs season 3. Season 3 is "only" 5 million. If GoT can kick on through the whole season from this good premier then it can easily top True Blood season 3 opener with GoT season 2 opener.

Happy with 3 million because I would have been happy with a True Blood sort of number. Though with much higher production cost GoT probably needed something more like the Pacific opener for HBO to be happy.

[Green Apple Fossoway]

I am very pessimistic. Everything indicates that the premiere has failed. It is very sad that Americans do not know how to value these series. They are very rare.

Yes, you are very pessimistic. The show's debut was nowhere near a failure. Chill out, think happy thoughts and all that. The sun will come up tomorrow.

[Ran]

Yep, that's very pessimistic. Sit on the pessimism until tomorrow, and then we can see if it's justified or not. :)