HBO’s Vice President of Drama Development Michael Ellenberg Leaving Network

Internal shake ups at HBO haven’t hurt Game of Thrones yet, but this one comes slightly closer than usual. Deadline reported yesterday that Michael Ellenberg, the man who has been overseeing HBO’s drama department since 2011 (in other words, throughout Game of Thrones‘ entire run on the network) is heading out for other pastures. What makes this interesting to that instead of replacing him, either through an internal hire or an outside candidate, HBO is not filing the position. Instead, Casey Bloys, who oversees the network’s comedy division, will take over the drama one as well.

We’ve known for a while that Game of Thrones, which is the network’s biggest show by several orders of magnitude, is also one of a very few true dramas still on the network that is garnering critical acclaim. As Deadline notes, the “drama portfolio” has shrunk dramatically in the last five years, as other shows like True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, and The Newsroom ended their runs. Other dramas, like True Detective, have not fared so well, and may not survive this changing of the guard. Even “comedy” shows with dramatic elements like Girls have declared clear end dates.

Game of Thrones isn’t going anywhere as of yet. Considering that HBO execs have been talking about working out deals for Season 8, we can look forward to at least three more years of the show, one more than showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss originally predicted. The extra year gives the network a bit more breathing room to develop replacement dramas for when its flagship show ends. This year, they’re introducing new period drama Vinyl, which will push the Game of Thrones premiere back in the schedule by a couple of weeks. There have also been rumors circling about the network working with Margaret Atwood to develop her MaddAddam trilogy, as well as with Martin himself on a different non-Westeros based show. No word if those will be effected by this change.