After last week’s predicted holiday weekend dip, we get a confirmation that the viewing patters of Game of Thrones fans haven’t changed dramatically. Everyone’s who used to do so is back to watching the show as soon as it airs – the first airing was seen by 7.80 million people this week, for a demo rating of 4.0. Both these numbers are right there at the high-water mark for this season. Needless to say, it was the most watched programme of the night once more.
Stable and high, the story continues. The numbers are high enough, close to 8 million, to expect – with a strong run of the remaining three episodes – a new record by the season finale. There is bound to be enough extra excitement generated for the traditionally strong 9th episode of the season and the finale to break the 8.11 million from last year.
Sansa!!! 😉
In other news, water is wet 🙂
Seriously guys, let’s not even worry about ratings anymore. GoT will keep on crushing it until the end.
What a pity. Poor HBO, Poor Game of Thrones. I am sure they are about to tank, any day now. Right? 😉
Great numbers and it is totally possible that episode 10 will break the internet and the total viewership.
omg do I get to go Hodor??? Why no, I do not. Congrats to the show, instead 🙂
Gendry return would break the record!
I don’t think anyone is worried about ratings – I think now it’s just curiousity and to see if GOT can break records
Dee,
agreed, I’m not worried at all, its just fun looking at the numbers! this may be aggressive but I’m hoping for 9 million for ep 9 or 10
Do people that have DVR that start watching 5-10-15 minutes into the episode count as a live viewer in these numbers?
Unless GeekFurious comments, this thread will not be complete…
serum,
me too 🙂
WinterRy71,
ive always wondered that
Next episode’s viewership numbers will be out of this world; usually the episodes previews are kinda boring and the episodes themselves amazing but now we have a great preview for next week’s episode: Arya’s fate, the Hound’s revenge, Cersei’s choice, Jamie vs Brienne, more Blackfish, and lets not forget Jon Snow’s prepping for battle and Tyrion – Varys all-star tandem…. I CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did that guy in the foreground take an arrow to the knee?.. 🙂
Great numbers.
This shapes out to be the best season yet, viewership wise.
“No One” is going to be a very violent episode!!!! In the previews Cersei says…. “I choose violence”…. and then it starts. Sir Robert Strong will be unleashed.
The hound is angry and he “ain’t gonna take it anymore”
Aray will battle with the Waif in the first girl on girl sword fight.
There will be a major battle between Jamie’s army and Blackfish’s Riverrun Castle.
Get ready for non-stop action leading right into The Battle of the Bastards
This is great news considering the NBA playoff game 2 was on the same night.
Would be interesting if Jamie and the Blackfish find a way to join forces against the Bolton’s. Then perhaps they can all unite behind Jon. If the Northern houses keep annihilating each other there won’t be enough men to wage war against the dead.
Unless there is some hidden secret out there?
Even with Dany’s Dragon’s I don’t see how they stop a huge army of wights & the Night King.
The Night’s King sounds better.
WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THESE STUPID RATINGS OMG! THIS IS NOT COMMERCIAL TELEVISION! HOW DOES THIS NOT COMPUTE TO YOU PEOPLE????
But yes, they do count. And repeated DVR viewings count too. Also, if you dance around your TV and sing… counts.
Why haven’t you said something about this before, GF? I’m sure if you had, Neilson would stop gathering such useless data for all their shows immediately. I’m sure no one cares about numbers, especially not the advertisers on other networks.
NOBODY UNDERSTANDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S.
It’s Nielsen… you should probably know that before getting all snarky while bathing in ignorance.
The ratings thread is complete now.
Great ratings, but I kind of hate Game of Thrones now….
It has ruined almost all other TV shows for me. Every time I try and start a new series, I say to myself: “Well, this isn’t as good as Game of Thrones. Mine as well, watch an old episode of GoT instead.”
Thanks GRRM and D&D!! You stink….
Yep. Lock up the thread. Call it a day. Time to close shop and go home. GeekFurious has spoken!
Josh L,
You’re terrible Muriel. 🙂
BY THE POWER OF NIELSEN!!!!
🙂
Totally. Haha! 🙂
Agreed. 100%.
This post is killing me. Gj everyone.
The Blackfyre Pretender, with huge amounts of dragon fire raining down from the sky from 3 enormous dragons. Also, kill the WWs and you kill all of the wights.
I keep re-watching that cold open, what a thing of beauty. From acting to cinematography to Ramen’s AMAZING score. I wonder if there’s been a better character reintroduction in the history of TV? I think it might be my favorite thing of the season so far.
I just wish I never read up on stuff from the book or read the production rumors which spoiled it. The surprise of it would’ve made it so much better.
Why did the Brotherhood Without Banners kill the Hound’s friends? I suspect it’s because they saw the awful Nicholas Cage remake of The Wicker Man and seeing the frame of the church sent them over the edge.
But srsly, I look forward to seeing how far the show will delve into the Brotherhood this and next season and why they acting so naughtily last week. The BWB set the ball moving and the Hound has an axe. This subplot oughta be wacky.
LatrineDiggerBrian, Um, Hot Pie.
Catspaw Assassin, I can think of only one reason why the BWB would be back unless they have a bigger part to play in future books.
LatrineDiggerBrian,
I totally agree. The photography, location, characters and writing made for some of the very best television I’ve ever watched. 😉
Rygritte,
Of course that would depend on whether the show is going to go with the Lady Stoneheart storyline, which imo would be either super cool or lame as hell.
As for Hot Pie, my ♪ fantasy script ♫ has the Stark forces defeating the Boltons, after which the victors retire to the Inn of the Crossroads for some sweet home cooking.
ROFL
Great numbers, good to see they bounced right back up as if there was no blip etc, makes everything well poised to break the records for the epic season ending episodes
The Bastard,
Back when I lent my first two season DVD sets to friends they said the same thing after watching. They tried some other series and kept saying, “Thrones has ruined it for everything else.” 🙂
haha….that was my first thought when I saw the frame they were building. The Wicker Man! Thankfully, I was thinking more the classic 60s original, not the Nic Cage remake abortion.
Haha, awesome 🙂
I am sorry for mentioninng the demographic ratings a couple of times. These really make no sense and play no role whatsoever (who cares about counting the 18-49 year olds whom advertisers target, separately, since there are no ads to be sold on HBO).
However, the daily viewership numbers, the only numbers we can get on a regular basis, are an indication of the overall audience, watching whenever and in whatever way possible – which DOES matter. (It’s just that we don’t have any news on that total cross-platform episode average yet.)
See, we get it 😉
Cable television matters, because a given show but mostly sporting codes give an indication as to the subscription pulling power, and hence value they have
In this case it matters because it means GoT is meaning there’s a lot of people subscribing to their channel
It also matter because, when launching a new product delivery medium, such as a streaming service, there often needs to be a popular product to entice people to consider going through the inconvenience of getting said medium
Eg back in the day XBox live and online gaming in general got some legs not only via the proliferation of Broadband but also via the Halo franchise in my part whenever they bring out Netflix there’s a lot of House of Cards on the ads, with Stan there was better call Saul
And HBO Go or HBO Now or whatever there is Game of Thrones
This all matters, because if Game of Thrones is HBO’s main puppy, and the main program for which it is marketing the launching of a new medium which just may be what saves it in the digital consumption age long after GoT has finished…
It basically means they give it all the support and funding it needs to give a proper finish, what with actors wages and CGI budgets for larger battles (and to turn Riverrun into Disneyland and Horn Hill into a bizarre Roman Palace but anyway…Bear Island was a gorgeous Island resort) and more extras etc for film locations and more Props and Riverrun type facades etc
where’s brother ray in the picture above?
Hehe, although Disney Land copied the look from real castles from central Europe like Pixdaus and Saumur Castles. Riverrun is based on that architecture. So really they turned Disneyland into Riverrun.
Any news on UK viewing numbers?
The Bastard,
Good to see I’m not the only one that sees this dark side to GOT lol. It has ruined me for anything else. Never before have I found myself so immersed in a fictional world. But I’m pretty jaded when it comes to television so it takes something pretty special to reel me in.
Josh L,
Lol!
The numbers are interesting because of HBO’s future. HBO does not have a show on the stove that can approach numbers like this.
In fact it is still not known , for sure, how many episodes season 7 has or what S8 will look like.
Can I just say, and I may be alone in this, that Ian McShane ruined this episode for me. He spoiled it way before hand by pretty much saying (for anyone who paid attention) that the Hound was coming back, and we knew that he (Ian) was only in one episode.
I was more upset was the lack of respect for the entire production team that was keeping the Hound’s return a secret for years, that he just gave two interviews and pretty much said “get over it”. The second I saw Ian in that first clip, I was like here comes the Hound, and Ian Mcshane will die this episode. And honestly, I didn’t think his acting wasn’t any better than the actor who played Sam’s dad, or the Blackfish, or especially the Queen of Thorns, (I can go on). I don’t know why there is so much dick riding over him.
I listen to the podcasts, and read the articles, and I feel a lot of people have given Ian McShane a pass because he was so good on Deadwood maybe. He’s not Marlon Brando, and to ruin so many people’s hard work on production to hide a secret should not give any actor a pass, just because you like him #pompous #haverespect #hewasok #dontbeadick #got
I think that whenever they wrap up the show, the series finale must be 2 hours long. Has to be. Or at least 90 minutes.
When do the DVR and streaming numbers get released?
Boojam,
HBO needs Westworld to be an absolute hit. Their drama pickings after GOT are lacking greatly. Vinyl was a flop, True Detective most likely is not going to be back and The Leftovers is supposed to be very good (I can’t comment as have not seen an episode of it) but has little to no people watching. They need a new hit, whether that be Westworld or a GOT spinoff, otherwise they will fall farther behind Netflix and other networks.
LatrineDiggerBrian,
Honestly for a second I thought I was watching some highly improved episode of Xena Warrior Princess ?
‘Other shows on Sunday night, once GoT is done with them’ lol ?
Where is the twitter recap? I’m dying. Seriously though is Axechucker okay?
Lady Snow,
Same!!!
Yves-Langston Barthaud,
Yeah, you make a good argument, but I also saw that headline about Ian McShane and made sure not to read the article, so I wasn’t spoiled.
Anyone else surprised to see that Jon is continuing to be ‘in a funk’. I hope this battle will snap him out of it. He is starting to depress me!
They are rolling in a basking shark for Jon and Daeny to team jump: a mere great white by one lead is not enough for this show.
There is two general reasons why: they are an existing plot element of which the audience can be fairly easily remind and that will be useful for the plot and/or for creating some issues for one of the main characters.
Well, the other issue is that the “real” audience for any cable TV series is going to be a biased subset of the potential audience: only people who get HBO, Showtime, etc., can affect the ratings, and those people tend to be on the older half of that spectrum. So, when the numbers showed that a big chunk of the audience was in the upper 30 – upper 40’s age, it was not that the show was not appealing to younger people: it was that a smaller proportion of mid 20- mid 30 year olds subscribe to HBO than mid 30 – mid 40 year olds.
(But that is part of the remarkable aspect of Throne’s success: it is being driven by people who do not represent prime candidates for being fantasy fans! Indeed, this is a crowd that is more apt to know what the Booker nominees are than the Hugo nominees…. 😀 )
Not really. He’s just seen that death is nothing. He is reeling from having been executed by his own people while trying to serve a greater “good.” Given his reactions, I do not think that Jon had Sansa’s illusions about the North rallying to the Stark’s cause: Jon has learned the hard lessons on how loyalty can be lost.
I had wondered if Jon would start learning to warg as a result, perhaps as a way to remember who he is. However, I now think that it probably is too important for Jon to be facing the despair of one hopeless fight, for which the reward of improbable victory will be an even more hopeless fight.
These are just from the Sunday and Monday broadcasts, does not include views from internet / mobile devices. Covers a 7 day period
1st figure is for Sunday, 2nd for the repeat on Monday (in thousands )
1) 2 289
2) 2 277 + 1 195
3) 2 470 + 1 214
4) 2 414 + 1 239
5) 2 326 + 1 208
6) 2 385 + 1 140
I presume the Sunday figures include Skybox recordings – or it’s damned impressive if folks ( about 10% of the workforce!) are staying up until 2am!
http://www.hbo.com/search?type=schedule&seriesIds=PMRS1663&q=Game%20of%20Thrones
Episode 9+10 titles CONFIRMED
Rhaenys Stark,
Awesome!
Rhaenys Stark,
omg
episode 10.
*faints*
____
Also, I hope that the rest of the synopsis we saw were also wrong. They were so spoilery lol
Arya to Westeros!
Rhaenys Stark,
I do not see how the Cleganebowl arc can get the hound back to KL this season with those episodes?
Dutch Maester,
Dee Stark,
I didn’t like the “Battle of the Bastards” when I first saw it, but now it’s starting to grow on me 😀 “The Winds of Winter” is amazing, I get chills just by reading it.
Rhaenys Stark,
sweet!
Rhaenys Stark,
Me too!!!!
Dee Stark,
I hope at least in the real description of episode 10 says “the night’s watch gathers” at the end or something
And then the Wall comes down! (HOPEFULLY)
Don’t know if anyone else has pointed this out, but to all the people complaining about paying attentiom to the ratings, there is a tangible reason for caring about them and being excited to see the ratings increase, even at this point where the show is obviously not going to get cancelled…
It’s pretty simple; the higher the ratings, the more money HBO is making, the more money HBO makes means a greater sum of capital they can expend to increase the production budget on future seasons, larger budget gives the production team more freedom to decide how best to tell the story, etc etc etc.
While Disney doesn’t break out HBO’s CAPEX beyond “original programming” (so all HBO Original Series/Movies) in their 10k annual reports, you can see a tangible benefit with increased popularity of GOT within that “original programming” line item.
In short, paying attention to ratings=understanding the potential for an increased budget the next season.
Never thought I’d ever se “Captain Darling” kick ass. Tim McInnerny
Come on, one more Blacxk Adder series.
Yves-Langston Barthaud,
I wouldn’t go as far as to say he spoiled the episode but yes, it did have less impact because I knew The Hound was coming back and I knew McShane was just doing a kind of extended cameo. TBH I hope they don’t make a habit of dropping in well known actors for one episode. It verges on stunt casting and GoT doesn’t need this; the story and the characters are the main attraction. Many of my fave performances have been from unknown (to me) actors who really became the character – Rory McCann being a good example. At least von Sydow got a storyline and appeared in multiple eps before dying.