In news that will surprise absolutely no one, Game of Thrones has been renewed for a fifth and six season. During the announcement, Michael Lombardo, president of HBO Programming, said: “GAME OF
THRONES is a phenomenon like no other. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along with their talented collaborators, continue to surpass themselves, and we look forward to more of their dazzling storytelling.”
We heard a few weeks back that the team were pretty firm on their commitment to just seven seasons of the show, but the fact they’ve chosen to renew up until the end of season six suggests to us that they will see where George R.R. Martin and the show stand in terms of book 7 and go from there.
In terms of ratings there is only good news: the season four premiere was watched by an average of 6.6 million viewers, making it HBO’s most-watched program since the finale of “The Sopranos” in 2007. The premiere improved 52% over last season’s premiere and 23% over last season’s finale. GAME OF THRONES added an additional 1.6 million viewers from the 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. replays, for a gross audience of 8.2 million viewers for the night.
In the UK, 1.2 million tuned into Sky Atlantic across two broadcasts, one a 02:00 BST simulcast with the US. More than 538,000 UK fans watched the early morning airing, while another 664,000 saw the series return in its Monday night slot of 21:00 BST. Sky Atlantic has also said that it expected those numbers to rise when consolidated figures – including catch-up and on demand viewings – were released in seven days time.
The scary thing is that those numbers still don’t tell the full story – Game of Thrones is the most illegally-downloaded TV programme internationally, accounting for a quarter of all pirated downloads from 100 torrent sites. In the past, single episodes of A Game of Thrones have received as many as 6 million downloads. And, this trend doesn’t look set to stop anytime soon: one Torrent site confirmed that the series four debut had over 1 million downloads within 12 hours of airing.
Regardless of how it is watched, there is little doubt fans will struggle to make it through the wait each week during the Emmy®- and Golden Globe-winning show’s ten-episodes. The quality of the show has already been confirmed by those who saw the first episode of the new season and the media too; the Los Angeles Times referred to it as “the Best Television Show Ever,” with the ruling that “no other series comes close.” Newsday said that season 4 proves that the series is “still TV’s best,” and awarded the first episode an A+ too.
All-in-all it seems kind of crazy that HBO don’t want to extend it to eight-seasons really…
Jennie Ivins
There is of course a loophole; they could make Season 7 21 episodes long with a 2 hour finale.
That way they could keep to the “we want to keep it to 7 seasons” thing whilst fitting in the story.
Give GRRM the time he needs too.
I liked the first episode but the full frontal nudity of the girl whores alongside the coyness in showing the boy whore’s body in the brothel scene really irked me. I’m all for some gratuitous nudity but the disparity in who they show is something I find a little troubling.