Will Game of Thrones save Sky’s Blushes?
Game of Thrones UK premier of 1.07 million viewers gives sky atlantic its first real success after 2 months.
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.
I have to disagree. The effort Sky have put into marketing the show has to explain why it got over a million viewers – for all sky viewers there has barely been an advert break without the show being pushed in your face. (not that i disliked the show – it was epic in SkyHD).I have to say Sky were the perfect choice to air the show – if it had been aired on a mainstream TV they would not of had the money to bring it over so quickly. Even if you still disagree Sky Atlantic is the home of HBO UK, get used to it.
Adam
Sky absolutley needed this show to work or else sky atlantic was heading for being one of the most expensive TV flops to date, of course they were going to push it big style.
However do you think the viewing figures are down to SKY, or are they down to the quality of the show, the media buzz coming over from the states, the very strong Uk cast, and the fact that what is considered cult broadcasting in the states is mainstream broadcasting over here?
I think saying the interest was generated by sky is niave, and perhaps agneda driven.
Not loving the killing of the dog in the second episode. May sound silly to a lot of people and of course i know this is fiction but its enough to make me not want to watch it again.
I really hope Sky end up showing this or i’ll be majorly disappointed.
If you seriously think that this series will flourish on a channel that is only available to Rupert Murdocs selective audience then you need your head examining. We can thank sky that it will die on there. Average 743,000 viewers out of a population of 60million is a joke. If there is ever a series 2, it will be down to the US viewing figures. It could have been massive in the Uk, but is instead consigned to a minority audience. I actually hope it flops so that sky and its selfish breed of followers end up becomming a graveyard for new programmes. This way every major tv company will avoid them like the plague. I’ll wait for the blu ray. Sky are a disease that has infected British tv.
STOP FUCK THAT BLONDEYOU BASTARDS!
The final full figure for Episode 1 (including repeats and digital viewers) was 1.85 million, which is immense by Sky’s usual standards for a drama show.
http://www.barb.co.uk/report/weeklyTopProgrammes?_s=4
@Paul: if Sky could reach all 60 million people in the UK, your point would be valid. But it only reaches 10 million, only a small fraction of whom watch drama (and the same is true of the bigger channels). Sky used to boast that 500,000 viewers for LOST or even 150,000 viewers for BSG on Sky One was great, so THRONES is doing absolutely brilliantly for them by any standards.
I think this show will be able to generate SKY some big money.
Considering that BSG, The Wire and Mad Men were averageing about 200 000 UK viewers a couple of years ago – and two of those were on free channels – I think those figures are pretty good. Most shows lose a proportion of their initial viewers, and some shows jettison them dramatically (such as The Event, Flash Forward and Stargate Universe), so the figures for late May will be more interesting.
Paul, Season 2 was announced after the show premiered in the US in April. Either you’re an embittered Sky subscriber who resents your monthly subscription, or how are things in download world these days?
I’m not surprised the viewing figures aren’t that spectacular, do you realize that people like myself don’t watch any shows live, as we record them for later viewing to get read of the dreaded adds and to watch at our own convenience, so is this the reason for the viewing figures to be low. I recon that this as caused a many show to be axed on many a tv channel, as it’s harder to get an average or hi power spike on the power grid (the old way of measuring popularity of shows and may still be used today) when top programs are shown, as the recording systems available use minimal power than any tv set. Not sure if sky uses a system that records how long a sky+ box as been on (green light on front display) or what programs have been recorded to hard drive? Till somebody can answer this, then stop speculating about what you think and just accept it’s been on and there probably are thousands of people that have seen it and not gone running to you to say it was good or bad!
I am a fan of the books, and I would certainly watch this on any other channel, but I will never, ever knowingly put a penny Rupert Murdoch’s way, and that’s not just since what News Corp lowlifes did with Milly Dowler. For the same reason I didn’t watch the Discworld films. I don’t think I’m the only one on either count. Opting to run with Sky was hardly an inspired decision. The novelty value of costuemd history/fantasy costumes + sex may have existed for the books, but since Rome, Tudors, Camelot etc. it certainly does not apply to TV. The show needs its fans and word of mouth to succeed and behind a paywall is not the place to hide.
I’m a fan of the books and series.
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Not watching Game of Thrones because you don’t like Rupert Murdoch is surely not going to help any original programmes get made! GoT is the most original, the most complex and simply the most brilliant programme that I’ve seen in a decade. We need more programmes like this – and we need to watch them because ratings count! Boycotting it because you don’t like SKY’s business decisions or because a dog is killed (not actually seen on screen and also NOT REAL, it being a television programme!) is ridiculous and is going to prevent fantastic genre programmes like GoT being made in the future.
The books are classic, been a fan for a while now. I think that this may prove to be a good move for SKY, economically speaking.. I’m hoping for the best