Steady Ratings for Game of Thrones

[Khal Porno]

The combined ebook someone made of Feast and Dance (titled "A Ball of Beasts," unfortunately) is a vastly superior read to the books individually, so I suspect the show will work just fine.

[GameofThronesFTW]

Wtf...what are we suppose to look forward to then for next season if they don't have a proper battle for the wall? Theres no way there not going to do what they did with blackwater. I mean, how hard is it? An army down below the wall, standing there, getting ready to fight, and people firing arrows over the wall and hitting them as they charge? I don't think it will cost as much as blackwater, as the huge explosion of wildfire was probably half of the budget for the battle there.

They better do it right.

[Jolene Brown]

They already called an episode The North Remembers! The first epi in Season 2, wasn't it?

[Rhaegar]

Wow, 5.3 Million viewers. Not too bad, looks like I was totally wrong, but I'm still glad...

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/04/30/game-of-thrones-hits-another-series-high/

[Fez]

Wow, 5.3 Million viewers. Not too bad, looks like I was totally wrong, but I'm still glad...

http://insidetv.ew.c...er-series-high/

Nice! Guess the new goal is to see if it can break 6 million before the season finale. I think its possible (unless this growth has just been people time shifting from the encore presentation to the initial airing; there's only so much growth available from that).

[giant snake]

I don't think a lot of the hate for AFfC is justified. The parts that drag were reminiscent of Arya's chapters in Book 2, and those all had a purpose and led to something better.

The problem for most people was the missing characters, but we know that won't be an issue with the show because of the star power and the payroll.

[Rhaegar]

Nice! Guess the new goal is to see if it can break 6 million before the season finale. I think its possible (unless this growth has just been people time shifting from the encore presentation to the initial airing; there's only so much growth available from that).

The total viewership was 5.349 million, so almost half a million more than last week. The second viewing was also up to 1.316 million (from 1.03). So, in total 6.67 million people watched the episode on the first day, which is on par with the season opener (which had three viewings on the first day, though). So no, these are not people shifting from the encore viewing.

http://tvbythenumber...ep-more/180165/

For the sake of comparison: True Blood never had that many viewers last season and only topped this mark five times in its whole run. The average viewership for season three (4.716 million) is now higher than True Blood's average viewership last season (4.665 million).

[Fez]

The total viewership was 5.349 million, so almost half a million more than last week. The second viewing was also up to 1.316 million (from 1.03). So, in total 6.67 million people watched the episode on the first day, which is on par with the season opener (which had three viewings on the first day, though). So no, these are not people shifting from the encore viewing.

http://tvbythenumber...ep-more/180165/

For the sake of comparison: True Blood never had that many viewers last season and only topped this mark five times in its whole run.

Cool. Although, unless all these new viewers have been marathoning the DVDs and On-Demand before catching up to the initial airings I don't see how they could possibly be jumping in to the middle like this and not be incredibly, overwhelming confused. Still, more power to them.

[Rhaegar]

Cool. Although, unless all these new viewers have been marathoning the DVDs and On-Demand before catching up to the initial airings I don't see how they could possibly be jumping in to the middle like this and not be incredibly, overwhelming confused. Still, more power to them.

Well, if I remember correctly the series had more than 11 million viewers per week last season (haven't seen this number for season 3). So there's still a lot of potential viewers, who may decide to start watching the show on the first day. And (hopefully for HBO) a few people who pirated the show might have decided to subscribe to HBO.

[Xanderpanda]

Well, if I remember correctly the series had more than 11 million viewers per week last season (haven't seen this number for season 3). So there's still a lot of potential viewers, who may decide to start watching the show on the first day. And (hopefully for HBO) a few people who pirated the show might have decided to subscribe to HBO.

It is apparently hitting over 13 million a week now.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/04/30/game-of-thrones-hits-another-series-high/

[Joyful Union]

my god, half a million in one week? I'm calling it now: 7 million for the Rains of Castamere episode.

[TomBadgerlock]

Nothing like dragons burning a city to the ground to increase ratings.

I expect that will be the highest of the season until Mhysa.

[Faint]

my god, half a million in one week? I'm calling it now: 7 million for the Rains of Castamere episode.

The highest rated episode of the season will likely be the season finale. Viewers who have not read the books have no idea what will happen in "Rains of Castamere." That said, when they do see the episode, I bet they'll be dying to see what happens next.

I think 7 million viewers for the initial airing, which is what I assume you are referring to, is too ambitious though. I'm just hoping it makes it to 6 million.

[HexenII]

5 million? I'm not really sure about that. The small growth between season 2 and 3 was originally thought to be heavily influenced by the easter holidays and the walking dead season final. But now that the numbers for episode 2 are published it looks like the growth inbetween season 2 and 3 was really not that significant. For me it looks like the series finally peaked and I don't think that the numbers for the initial broadcast will rise much more during the season.

It´s a done bussines, waiting for more to come.

[Baelor Swyft]

Wow, look at 'r go! That's awesome how much it has grown so quickly. 6 million is a definite possibility.

[The hairy bear]

Well, if I remember correctly the series had more than 11 million viewers per week last season (haven't seen this number for season 3). So there's still a lot of potential viewers, who may decide to start watching the show on the first day. And (hopefully for HBO) a few people who pirated the show might have decided to subscribe to HBO.

I confess I know next to nothing about the tv business in the USA, but why is that even a goal? Why should HBO care about whether people watch the episode the first time it airs, the second, or the fifth as long as they pay for the cable? And why it seems that the viewership of the first episode or the first day are more important that the viewership of the week?

[Abaddon]

I randomly ran into this article today: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/the-tribal-mind/the-ratings-race-weeks-13-and-14-20130327-2gsz0.html

Caption: "THE RATINGS RACE: Game of Thrones Episode 3.11 totals 210,000 viewers - Not bad for Pay TV"

[Faint]

I confess I know next to nothing about the tv business in the USA, but why is that even a goal? Why should HBO care about whether people watch the episode the first time it airs, the second, or the fifth as long as they pay for the cable? And why it seems that the viewership of the first episode or the first day are more important that the viewership of the week?

No, your assumptions are correct. Total viewership is far more significant than initial viewers, specifically because HBO is a suscription channel. Which also means that demo ratings are practically meaningless since they do not receive ad revenue. The media, however, is used to promoting initial ratings because that is what matters to the big networks (i.e., ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) and even regular cable channels which have commercials (i.e., AMC, USA, TNT, TBS). In the case of HBO, because they do not make money from selling time slots for commercials, the ratings by themselves are meaningless, what matters is their subscription numbers. They need to keep current subscribers happy so that they will retain HBO and hope to attract new subscribers with shows like Game of Thrones.

Now, as for the American media, should they put more focus on total viewership?

Of course. But, the media being the media, they are always determined to be antiquated, rigid in the way they have always done things, and far out of touch with what is actually important. This situation is particularly bad when it comes to reporting entertainment news. The best example is how they report box office numbers for movies in today's day and age. It used to be the case that the American domestic market was the be-all and end-all of box office receipts because the market was so much larger than foreign markets. That has completely changed. The international market, when it comes to big movies, is now typically two times the size of its American counterpart. You might not know that if you simply listened to the news here though. Films like the last Pirates of Caribbean are actually labeled financial failures with no attention paid to their foreign grosses. The whole state of affairs is depressing.

[Carey Snow]

No, your assumptions are correct. Total viewership is far more significant than initial viewers, specifically because HBO is a suscription channel. Which also means that demo ratings are practically meaningless since they do not receive ad revenue. The media, however, is used to promoting initial ratings because that is what matters to the big networks (i.e., ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) and even regular cable channels which have commercials (i.e., AMC, USA, TNT, TBS). In the case of HBO, because they do not make money from selling time slots for commercials, the ratings by themselves are meaningless, what matters is their subscription numbers. They need to keep current subscribers happy so that they will retain HBO and hope to attract new subscribers with shows like Game of Thrones.

Now, as for the American media, should they put more focus on total viewership?

Of course. But, the media being the media, they are always determined to be antiquated, rigid in the way they have always done things, and far out of touch with what is actually important. This situation is particularly bad when it comes to reporting entertainment news. The best example is how they report box office numbers for movies in today's day and age. It used to be the case that the American domestic market was the be-all and end-all of box office receipts because the market was so much larger than foreign markets. That has completely changed. The international market, when it comes to big movies, is now typically two times the size of its American counterpart. You might not know that if you simply listened to the news here though. Films like the last Pirates of Caribbean are actually labeled financial failures with no attention paid to their foreign grosses. The whole state of affairs is depressing.

Plus it is just a barometer of the excitement level for the show. If people can not wait to watch it, that means it is doing well. You get a lot of re-watches after that.

[cade]

Pretty clear now that Game of Thrones has supplanted True Blood as HBO's #1 show and probably will remain so until it ends. I think there's now a 99.9% chance that D&D will get their 8 seasons to complete the show.