Ratings hold steady once again

Hope it has not reached it’s peak ratings in the 1st episode :(

also, first?

My personal goal is that the series trumps Trueblood. GoT should be the HBO flagship :)

will you morons stop saying “first”?

Vulture.com is saying seasons four and five are “safe bets” in a post on the problem of child actors aging.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/04/game-of-thrones-kid-actor-problem.html

It’s good we’re keeping the 9PM viewers, though lost a bunch in the encore. Don’t think Thrones will challenge True Blood this year.

Tyrion Pimpslap:
I wonder if the Yankees-Angels game cut into the numbers? Those are two teams from the 1st and 2nd largest TV markets in the US. It’s nice to see that they are retaining viewers. My hope before the season was to be at 5 million first airing viewers by the season 2 finale. While I don’t rule that out, I may have to revise that wish to more like 4.5 million.

What we’ve learned from last season is that other major television events don’t have any detectable effect on GoT ratings (the NBA Finals had no discernible effect). And one regular season MLB game is NOT a major television event, despite the two teams playing.

True Blood’s 3rd episode of season 2 ratings are nearly identical to GOT’s. From episode 4 onward it started to rise. TB cracked the 4 million threshold in the sixth episode of season 2 and really took off from there. It finished with 5.1 million viewers for their second season finale. Of course, TB didn’t have to go H2H with the NBA playoffs either.

Carey Tran,

good call.

No one hates on TB as much as I do, but give credit where credit is due—GOT would not have been acquired by HBO without the huge success of the paranormal True Blood. The industry prejudice against even “upmarket” fantasy/horror as nerd-dominated, as seen in the major awards freeze-out of the genres (and failures of series like Camelot), would have been much harder for D&D to overcome without TB. (Remember, TB is considered part of the “horror” genre, although the lines between sci-fi, paranormal, horror, and fantasy are blurred for the vast majority of readers/viewers, and that includes network bigwigs).

Also, “flagship” is a relative term. TB is much more profitable by far than GOT could ever be, since TB is shot on a sound stage in L.A. TB will always be the profit “flag ship” unless GOT brings in an additional million subscribers annually.

Does anyone know what True Blood’s seasonal budget is? If I had to guess I would say 35-40 million.

DH87: I think a few barriers remain to pulling TB-level numbers. One is the prejudice against costume dramas; another is the prejudice against epic fantasy; another is the relentlessly dark subject matter; and another is the lack of an alpha-male star to overcome barriers 1-3. Without Alex Skarsgard, we’d see True Blood ratings sink much closer to the GOT ratings.

I am just happy that the ratings are holding steady for a new tv-series (and it is still new, we would need at least three seasons to be considered veterans) this is amazing, especially if we take into the account the fact that this IS fantasy (Sopranos of Middle-Earth or not). But I would like to see us smashing True Blood cause that show has become truly horrid, it used to be an entertaining show, and even the plotline was engaging but now it’s just BAAAD..
So we should endeavour to steal Alexander Skarsgård from them, any ideas which role would fit him? :)
I can only think of Aurane Waters but he was described as a 20-something lad…

DH87: Vulture.com is saying seasons four and five are “safe bets” in a post on the problem of child actors aging.http://www.vulture.com/2012/04/game-of-thrones-kid-actor-problem.html

I still don’t see this as a problem. Sophie is 16 and most likely done growing in height – she’s tall, it doesn’t matter now. She can look 20 and it doesn’t make a difference for her storyline. Maisie is 15 as of yesterday (Happy Birthday!) and she probably isn’t going to get much taller. It doesn’t matter much for her either if she looks a little older. The suppose-to-be-teen boys aren’t going to change any. Art’s part is barely a character in the books. Hate to say it, but if absolutely necessary in the future they could recast as we’ve hardly seen him. Aimee and Callum’s characters have rather small parts. Isaac is really the only one that might border on an issue, but there are ways to work around it.

Andrija: So we should endeavour to steal Alexander Skarsgård from them, any ideas which role would fit him? :)

Alex is already on to bigger and better things post-TB (his huge tentpole film The Vanguard was bought pre-emptively by Warners last year) so GOT is not in Alex’s future. Until six months ago, I would have been shipping Michael Fassbender for some major role (at 35, he is perfectly positioned to play older or younger) but that ship has sailed.

(And as a non-purest, I would be happy with the newly-imagined lead role of Aleric the Hunk for either Skarsgard or Fassbender, if it added 1 million eyeballs a week.)

Off topic, but does anyone know why GoT isn’t available on iTunes in the UK? I’ve heard you can get it in the US and Australia.

foxtrot uniform: To me the steady ratings are a clear indication that the show has reached its roof in terms of the amount of viewers it will get. It has already gained its full audience, and the figures are unlikely to rise much above that.

I think that might be true for this season. I don’t necessarily think it’s true for future seasons. I suspect that there will still be people catching up when the Season 2 DVDs are released, especially if the show continues to pick up Emmys and maintain the level of critical and fan acclaim that it has. And anyone with an HBO GO subscription can easily catch up at any point. Someone could blow through all the episodes in the next couple of days and tune in for the new episode on Sunday.

foxtrot uniform:
To me the steady ratings are a clear indication that the show has reached its roof in terms of the amount of viewers it will get. It has already gained its full audience, and the figures are unlikely to rise much above that.

How do you get that opinion? As already stated, GOT is still ahead of True Blood’s pace for their second season. True Blood didn’t top 4 million viewers on the first airing until episode 6 of their second season. I think GOT will top 4 million around episode 5 or 6 as well. I think viewers will have a WTF moment at the end of the next episode that will lead them to tune in on the first airing for episode 5.

Really. I don’t know how big it is in the USA. But here in Europe and even in my country ( Hungary ) where we don’t have that brilliant and huge marketing you have there, or we don’t have any serious marketing at all, Game of Thrones is THE THING people talk about. The show the books everything. I hardly know anybody here at the university who doesn’t watch GoT one way or another.

My point is, that the US numbers however are good to see and are pretty informative. Are really far from the whole story.

Throw rocks at me, but I’d love to see numbers of how many people are following the series on HBO and even pirated.

Josh: Which is perfect. The ratings don’t need to rise. HBO loves these ratings.

Agree. With BE just as costly and lagging behind GOT so significantly in the ratings and the cancellation of Luck, HBO is happy with GOT right now. Instead the suits are looking at BE. Our posters who were certain BE was safe due to all the awards it won should read what BE show runner Terrence Winter has said about requested budget cuts for the show.

http://www.craveonline.com/tv/articles/168725-are-the-walking-dead-a-boardwalk-empire-facing-budget-cuts

That’s directly the result of anemic/disappointing ratings, and is always an option, as opposed to cancellation, on the HBO table. This is why TB is such a goldmine for HBO: huge ratings and cheap production costs.

Arthur,

Agree, given those prejudices I mentioned earlier.

HBO needs to move BE elsewhere on its schedule (into the Luck spot?) to get it away from the Sunday Night Football juggernaut each Sunday in the autumn, and counter-program, against the U.S. male viewer, rather than go head to head for him.

This would be a CHEAP, woman-friendly series—fashion, celebrity, British Royal Family, etc., smartly written and produced, with a female-oriented star or two and a high-octane male star to attract women to the other TV while hubby is watching the game.

Edit to add: I’m not sure anything could succeed against Sunday Night Football at 9 or l0 PM on any premium cable, including GOT and possibly even TB.

DH87: Agree. With BE just as costly and lagging behind GOT so significantly in the ratings and the cancellation of Luck, HBO is happy with GOT right now. Instead the suits are looking at BE. Our posters who were certain BE was safe due to all the awards it won should read what BE show runner Terrence Winter has said about requested budget cuts for the show.

http://www.craveonline.com/tv/articles/168725-are-the-walking-dead-a-boardwalk-empire-facing-budget-cuts

That’s directly the result of anemic/disappointing ratings, and is always an option, as opposed to cancellation, on the HBO table. This is why TB is such a goldmine for HBO: huge ratings and cheap production costs.

That article is almost a year old and deals with those shows’ second seasons now already produced and aired (both were renewed for a third season). Also, nowhere does it say why those alleged budget cuts were being considered. Your statement of ratings as a cause is simply your opinion. Initial airing ratings don’t affect HBO’s decisions on budgets or renewals/cancellations. If viewer figures are looked at for those decisions, it’s the full figures which include all airings and various online viewing methods etc.

For GoT, I don’t expect the initial airing rating to raise much, it’ll probably go over 4 million and might even top somewhere around the 4.5 million mark, but going over 5 million is quite unlikely for season 2. On the other hand, I’d expect the more interesting and important figure, the full viewer number, to easily top 10 million on average, probably reach even 12 million.

I think the ratings will get higher and higher as the fantasy/book fans stay as the base and the non-fantasy person starts watching it more and more regularly in realization that, “hey this isn’t about orcs and goblins, it’s about medieval type family monarchy wars”-COOL

tysnow:
My goal is for GoT to have at least 12 million subscribers watching the show during its seasonal run, which is almost half their subscribers. That to me is the big number for HBO, TB gets 11-12 million a season this way, GoT acquired 9.4 million its freshman year.

Actually having 12 million total viewers for an HBO show would not mean almost half of the potential viewers since there are many more viewers than there are subscribers. A household will only need one subscription, but there will be more than one people living in at least half of them to watch any shows. I would wager a guess that the 28 million subscribers transfer to somewhere around 50-70 million potential viewers (depending on the show and the age of family members in any given subscriber household).

At the moment about 5 % of those Nielsen household viewers that have HBO watch the initial airing and up to about 15 % of all HBO viewers watch the show at some point through the different channels available to them (TV, OD, GO, etc.).

funlight:
Of course I’m heavily biased, so I’ll ask for other opinions:
Isn’t it quite difficult to jump into the story at this point? Is the show able to attract many new viewers? Maybe for the main viewings, but overall (DVD sales etc) I’m sure they can attract many more.

I think so. But that’s part of the beauty of HBO GO, the DVDs and on demand. It wouldn’t take much to catch up if you felt the need. You probably need to go back, but with only about 12 hours done, that’s not insurmountable.

DH87:
Edit to add: RitariKnight, it is subscriptions that matter most internally to HBO, not cumulative ratings, as I think we’ve discussed. Neilsen first-airing ratings matter most to the non-premium channels, both on and off cable. Those two benchmarks trump all other ratings manipulations, I believe.

I know, I’ve been saying that on many occasions here in different ratings themed discussions. The emphasis by many here on initial airing ratings is baffling with GoT (and any other HBO show), since the only viewer figure HBO really cares about is the cumulative number, but the most important figure is the subscriber number like you said. Initial ratings only matter to HBO in generating buzz in the media since most of the media do not understand how HBO’s business model (and other such channels) differs from network channels’ model. They’re just used to rating any show’s success with initial ratings and therefore report on that. HBO does not do any business decisions based on initial ratings while networks and non-premium cable base (almost) everything on them.

DH87: Agree. With BE just as costly and lagging behind GOT so significantly in the ratings and the cancellation of Luck, HBO is happy with GOT right now. Instead the suits are looking at BE. Our posters who were certain BE was safe due to all the awards it won should read what BE show runner Terrence Winter has said about requested budget cuts for the show.

http://www.craveonline.com/tv/articles/168725-are-the-walking-dead-a-boardwalk-empire-facing-budget-cuts

That’s directly the result of anemic/disappointing ratings, and is always an option, as opposed to cancellation, on the HBO table. This is why TB is such a goldmine for HBO: huge ratings and cheap production costs.

The HR roundtable you’re sourcing was produced in the first half of 2011 – before season 2 of either Boardwalk or Walking Dead aired so isn’t reliable for the state of either show’s third season budget.

Glad the ratings are steady. The press being so good is reassuring too.

Edited to add: Noticed I’m repeating RitariKnight here but still think its worth saying.

Owen Parker: The HR roundtable you’re sourcing was produced in summer 2011 – before season 2 of either Boardwalk or Walking Dead aired so isn’t reliable for the state of either show’s third season budget.

Understood and already noted. Not so precise but more current is the Vulture.com post re: the third season BE renewal: Ratings have dropped off a bit from last season’s big numbers, but the show has stabilized, and while HBO would no doubt prefer a somewhat less expensive version of the show, you can only slash Paz de le Huerta’s wardrobe budget so much.

http://www.vulture.com/2011/10/boardwalk_empire_renewed.html

Still, I believe Luck’s cancellation and Alan Ball’s departure from True Blood are the two best bits of good fortune to hit Terrence Winter’s show, not any ratings or awards feat.

DH87,

You can only slash Paz de La Huerta’s wardrobe budget so much, but dropping her from the show is maximizing the opportunity there. Dropping several other starring cast members from your show has to reduce your production costs a bit too!

Its “Terence Winter” with one R and I think his show is in ok shape. I don’t think Luck’s cancellation helps any other show on the network. It was in production so millions had been spent on it when it was cancelled. The network still needs to produce something else to fill the slot left by the cancellation so it is a net drain on their resources.

True Blood losing a show runner might free up some funds as his replacement will presumably be cheaper but I suspect they’ll spend that on the rising cast salaries of keeping True Blood going rather than on other projects.

I think Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire both need to succeed on their own merits and are not in competition with other hbo shows. In fact other successes for the network probably widen the margin for critically acclaimed but little watched series; I think Treme is the one we should consider endangered out of their current ongoing lineup.

I’m guessing the numbers will really start to rise after people see the weirdness that goes on in episode 4. That one will be talked about, if what I think is going to happen actually happens.

Owen Parker,

I took the “slashing Paz de La Huerta’s wardrobe budget” as a not-particularly-sly dig at her frequent nudity in S1 . . . .and thanks for the typo correction to Terence Winter’s name. I agree Treme is in danger, not just because of its anemic ratings but also because it lacks the Winter/Scorsese firepower of BE. It was only renewed last year because it’s so cheap to produce and because it is representative of a “different” take on life from the privileged folks on Big Love, etc.

The cancellation of Luck doesn’t free up $$ but it makes this groups of HBO suits unhappy to lose the big names like Michael Mann, Nick Nolte, Dustin Hoffman, and David Milch they are known to cultivate. I have read Lombardo is in talks with Winter, Scorsese and Mich Jagger for a rock n’ roll series and Dick Wolf and BE alums Korden and A. Coulter are cozying up for some Cold War-era drama for HBO, too, so all those folks will get a soft landing no matter what happens to BE.

Must be nice. Goes to show that you should take a job—any job—at HBO and you’ll be set for life.

The copyrightability of Game of Thrones and the Dothraki language was recently discussed by Google in a footnote to a submission relating to the case of Oracle America Inc v Google Inc (where Oracle is apparently trying to argue, inter alia, that the Java programming language can be subject to copyright). See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120413141851964 for reference and context.

“Similarly, fictional languages such as Na’vi and Dothraki cannot be copyrighted. While the film Avatar and the television series Game of Thrones are copyrightable (including the portions in the fictional Na’vi and Dothraki languages), and while, for example, a dictionary or grammar textbook for either language would be copyrightable, the languages themselves are not. Oracle asks why copyright should not protect such languages, see Oracle 4/5/12 Br. [Dkt. 859] at 9; the answer is that Section 102(b) says that they are not protected. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that allowing copyright owners to control who can express themselves in these languages would further the aims of copyright law.”

The Instrumentalist,

Yup, I pirate the show on a regular basis, but it’s because the episodes air a whopping 9 days later in Australia and I don’t want to buy Foxtel – if I could pay for just the one channel description, then I would, but it doesn’t work that way here. Anyway, I made sure I bought the BluRay as soon as it came out and I didn’t regret it one bit.

And guys, we shouldn’t be too worried about ratings at this point. It looks to be holding much better than True Blood did in its second season so far and ratings always jump after something shocking happens, eg. a character is killed off, as this stimulates discussion and hype around the show. As the readers know, something quite shocking will happen in Episode 4, so here’s to hoping it follows trends and there’s yet another jump.

Matt,

I don’t think Australia will be affected by the coming ISP changes, but I could be wrong. Hopefully yours don’t take a clue from the big providers in the US on that subject.

Lala,

Calm down ladies…

http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/4100000/Wet-Alex-Skarsgard-Eric-Northman-true-blood-4143290-271-394.jpg

Quick take a peek! Before the hubby comes in!!!

Hmmmmmm… Getting vaguely paranoid everything is gonna fail

How exactly do you construct a version of GoT that kids can watch? You’d end up with 15-20 minute episodes. 25 minutes on a good night.

tysnow:
RitariKnight,
My idea to HBO and this in an old one. Create a slightly watered down version of GoT, edit some of the raunchier parts out and show it earlier, like 7pm or 8pm. We still get the hard core version at 10-11 pm. Bring in younger viewers, get them to tell their schoolmates, and we have a domino effect.

No.

tysnow:
Another belief is that Nina is gonna make the Dornish the sexy beasts of GoT, that’s why I want Johnny Depp as Oberyn, when he plays ladykiller, the women fall all over themselves, at least according to the rags. A high profile actor of great caliber who is like considered one of the sexiest and brings in a huge fanbase at least to watch, then hopefully stay on after seeing the awesome that is GoT. The RV is a small role perhaps 5-6 episodes, so to me its very doable.

Wait a sec…your whole post was a joke…right?

Off-topic, but Season 2 now available on itunes in Australia. Downloading episode 1 now (all that’s out so far). A few weeks behind US, but not too bad. $28.99 for the whole season (cost of a cup of coffee per episode). Also I see it’s at the top of the itunes TV downloads this week.

Hannah G,

I’ve heard you can change your country on itunes (e.g. to Australia) and then pay via an itunes voucher (although perhaps you would need an Aussie dollar voucher to make this work). Although technically it may breach your Apple agreement. Haven’t tried it but apparently Australians use this method to get access to the US TV/movie selections before it’s available in Oz.

Tyrion4Lyfe,

I dunno, but they manage to pull in 4 billion dollars in annual revenue somehow.

Carey Tran: You have the right to your opinion, but your prognostication is very likely to be proven wrong. Television ratings for most shows fluctuate up and down throughout a season, often following the pattern of being high for the premiere, then dropping steadily until mid-season, then rising steadily until the finale. Staying flat is actually evidence of a devoted fan base, not of stagnation. The numbers are extremely good given the slow pace of the plot at this point in the story. I am confident the ratings will be over 4 million by the finale, perhaps even approaching 4.5 million. And next season’s ratings will hover solidly around 4.5 to 5 million.

There was nothing negativistic or pessimistic in my post. I never implied that the show has fallen into stagnation. Don’t be so overprotective.
Yes, the show has a devoted fan base, but it’s one that won’t become much larger than it currently is. GoT has already been all over the media and in the awards. The hype is past its peak already, and my opinion is that not many new viewers will be drawn to the show. I’m basing this opinion on realism, not negativism. Peace.

foxtrot uniform: There was nothing negativistic or pessimistic in my post. I never implied that the show has fallen into stagnation. Don’t be so overprotective.
Yes, the show has a devoted fan base, but it’s one that won’t become much larger than it currently is. GoT has already been all over the media and in the awards. The hype is past its peak already, and my opinion is that not many new viewers will be drawn to the show. I’m basing this opinion on realism, not negativism. Peace.

I didn’t say you based it on negativism. I’m not being overprotective. I’m just saying that I think you’re wrong. Don’t take it personally.

So let’s assume we are relatively close to hitting a viewer ceiling. I’m not saying if I think we are or are not. But play along.

Now, if that is the case, and we only get around 4 million, give or take a quarter million or so, why the worry? It is not like 4 million U.S. viewers is an insignificant number. Plus you have to factor in the international numbers and merchandising. I think even without much growth, future seasons are not exactly in jeopardy. When/if we start to see significant viewership drops, that is the time for fretting and hand-wringing.

Tyrion4Lyfe: Are you kidding?Who watches the NBA?

Few things are better then the NBA playoffs, and if the Lakers are on even GOT may not be able to deny them.

The UK figures will not be accurate – you can only get it on Sky Atlantic and as you need a Sky box to do this – most people will record it to watch it. It’s also on Sky Anytime+ so you get to watch it without adverts. Our house don’t watch it until Tuesday night as we record two other things at 9.00. And we record GoT after midnight. My fiancee’s family won’t watch it straight away either and my sister will probably watch the recorded version later as well. Anybody who has Sky doesn’t really watch shows live as the Sky+ is designed so you can watch what you want when you want. Ratings therefore captured live are totally meaningless. Oh you can also watch online via the SkyGo app on a tablet, laptop or smartphone. There are also several repeats of the episode at various times throughout the week. Now you tell me how you can collect that data accurately. You cannot.