Though a lot has been made of HBO’s healthy viewing figures for Game of Thrones in the states, being a UK based fan site, we are much more interested in how the show has perfomed in the UK.

As you may have seen from earlier posts I am not a fan of Sky, News Corp, or Rupert Murdoch, and I was dismayed by HBO’s decision to tie in with SKY in the UK.

Up until this point Sky executives must have been worrying about viewing figures for the new channel. Previous best figures were for Boardwalk Empire on the launch night of the new series which averaged 438,000 viewers for its premier.

This sounds like fair figures, but the story hasn’t generally been rosy for Sky Atlantic. Entourage which on ITV2 was regularly getting 200,000 visitors, only received 18,000 for its series premier on Sky.

Sky’s response from Mike Darcey, chief operating officer of BSkyB was to claim that he didn’t look at ratings any more and he stopped looking at the results “a long time ago”, that he was more concerned with column inches written, “We will look at success in a different way”.

My reading of the comments and figures is that Sky Atlantic was in deep trouble, and looking like becoming a very expensive flop!

However figures in for Game of Thrones have come in very healthy with an average of 743,000 viewers watching live on Monday night and overall figures of 1.07 million viewers when time shift viewing is taken into consideration.

I wonder if Mr Darcey has looked at those figures? or is he still only interested in column inches?

Obviously good news for SKY, but is it good news for HBO and Game of Thrones? Well if they had opted for the show to be seen on one of free to air, the channels most of us in the UK would of liked to have seen it on (E4, BBC2, More 4 ) we would have seen much higher viewing figures, probably in the region of 2.4 to 2.6 million as Sky Atlantic is only in approx 40% of UK households, and its traditional subscriber base doesn’t really match HBO’s intelligent output very well.

I belive this figures suggest that HBO have a show that would of been an absolute smash in the UK if it was not on Sky, but on a more accessible channel.

We were not too nervous about the series pilot getting picked up we were even less nervous about the 2^nd series.

The Most detailed comments from HBO can be found in this entertainment week interview with HBO presidents Richard Plepler and Michael Lombard.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What made you decide to renew Thrones?

Lombardo: It’s a great show that only gets better with every episode and ends where you’re left wanting more. On a creative level, it was screaming for another season. We had absolutely expectation that this would be a slow build. It’s challenging for people who’ve decided it’s not a genre for them. The word of mouth has been great and we don’t even have OnDemand numbers yet. We thought it was a great starting place.
Plepler: It’s a quintessential HBO show — it has a passionate connection with a big part of our audience. Whether the final number is 7 or 8 million viewers it doesn’t take anything away from the addictive quality of the show for a large chunk of our audience.

How many episodes is the second season?
Lombardo: It’s such a challenging show to produce. They don’t have a writing staff — its just the two of them (David Benioff and D.B. Weiss). The idea is to do 10 of them again, and that’s what they want to do, to maintain the quality of their work.

When will season two premiere?
Lombardo: We don’t want people to wait more than a year. This is a production challenge. You have to start every season anew [with new locations].
Plepler: Same time, next year.

When will production start?
Lombardo: The producers are scouting locations for second season now. That’s all to be discussed.

Many thanks to the guys at www.winter-is-coming.net for putting on to that information.

• Episode 1 – Winter is Coming
• Episode 2 – The Kingsroad
• Episode 3 – Lord Snow
• Episode 4 – Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
• Episode 5 – The Wolf and the Lion
• Episode 6 – A Golden Crown
• Episode 7 – You Win or You Die
• Episode 8 – The Pointy End
• Episode 9 – Baelor
• Episode 10 – Fire and Blood

Sky Atlantic will begin broadcasting Game of Thrones, the fantasy drama based on George RR Martin’s novels, on 18 April – the day after its US premiere on HBO.

The drama focuses on the struggle for power between competing factions in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of the mythical continent of Westeros – a time and place “reminiscent of medieval Europe” – with a cast including Sean Bean, Lena Headey, Mark Addy, Aidan Gillen, Charles Dance and Iain Glen.

Game of Thrones is based on Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, with four published and more in the pipeline.

It has been adapted for TV by David Benioff and DB Weiss. Benioff said no one had ever done fantasy “the HBO way, where the focus is on character and psychology rather than spectacle”.

Stuart Murphy, Sky Atlantic director of programmes, added: “We know our customers’ anticipation for the series has reached fever pitch, so we wanted to ensure they could see the show as close to its US broadcast as humanly possible. The series is a true spectacle that will surprise and captivate audiences, and it’s a huge testament to HBO’s bravura film-making that they continue to subvert the genres we know and love, this time in the fantasy genre.”

As we thought it was gouing tobe shortly after the americna date, but I am made up that its going to be within 24 hours  of the american date. No info on time as yet but I am sure that will come.

Anyway the source article and more comment to come

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/21/sky-atlantic-game-of-thrones

Dynamic Entertainment will issue the comic books at first and Bantam will later collect them in graphic-novel format. Here are some initial comic sketches for characters Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister whihcwere published online recently. No information is currently available on UK availability of the Comics.

We are bound to expect more spin offs and promorional items from the series as it grows in popularity, up to and after its release date.

She was a prolific and well love acteress, who had already appeared in many shows including Gavin and Stancey, Doctors, Skins, Casaulty and High Hopes in recent years. Actually looking at her IMDB profile the list is prolilic and contains many of the shows I loved and grew up with including Dr. Who and Blakes Seven.

The intrenet is full of better artciles and great quotes her about her today, but from us a toast a prayer and the wish that you are in safe hands tonight. All the best Margaret.

• BBC Article
• Winter is Coming Post

‘Game of Thrones’ has parted ways with its Academy Award-winning composer, Stephen Warbeck. The much-anticipated HBO drama has hired a new composer, Ramin Djawadi.

Djawadi’s most notable television projects have been ‘FlashForward’ and ‘Prison Break,’ and in the film realm, Djawadi wrote the scores for ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Clash of the Titans.’ Djawadi, who has worked frequently with composer Hans Zimmer, is also credited with composing “additional music” for movies such as ‘Batman Begins,’ ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’ and ‘Something’s Gotta Give.’

Djawadi will have to work fast: The fantasy drama premieres in just over 10 weeks, on April 17.’

Hopefully this wont have an impact on the quality of the show, but something must of been very wrong to rock the boat this soon before first airing.

Currently I can’t find any information relating to a UK launch date, with no mention of The show on the Sky Atlantic site yet, however with the  nature of the new channel I can’t see it being 2 far behind the American release date.

Anyway sorry for my feww months pause in posting and more catch up posts to come.

Like it or not the station marketed as ‘The home of HBO’ in the UK is going to be the only place we can watch any of HBO’s shows in the UK. Now I am defintley no fan of Sky or Rupert Murdoch, However seeing as the evil deal has been done im realyl glad that Sky has an apt platform for this show, and we are not going to see it shoved into the SKy 1 schedule at 11:30 ona thursday evening.

Currently though the show is being used to advertise Sky Atanlantic on billboards and bus shelters in the UK, we can find no information about the show on the Sky Atalntic website and are still in dark about a release date for Game of Thrones in the UK.

NB Checked a few places and we are gettin uncofirmed reports of an April showing in the UK, that fits with my thoughts. However nothing from any offical source, SKY  or no-one willing to nail there colours to the mast on anything precise.