Game of Thrones wins a most-watched title for 2018, without even airing new episodes
According to a new report via Vulture and information via media giant Comcast, the HBO series was the most-watched program on Xfinity’s video-on-demand platform in 2018. If there were new episodes of the show this year, we wouldn’t really bat an eye. Yet, Game of Thrones has not aired a single new episode since the summer of 2017 and this says a LOT about the cultural impact that this show has. Either there are Xfinity subscribers who are just checking out the show for the first time now, or there are a lot of people going back and re-watching the series going into the final season. While Xfinity may just be one particular provider, we like to think that there is a large-enough sample size for this news to be notable. (After all, the data sampled comes from more than 20 million homes and their non-linear viewing habits.)
No matter the way in which you look at it, there is one thing that feels obvious: This is a mind-boggling statistic that cements even further the status of this series as one of the most-dominant ones out there. The enthusiasm for Westeros isn’t dying off and that bodes well for when the show eventually launches with new episodes in April. We’ve wondered for a while if the series had peaked or if more people will keep flocking to it. For now, it still feels possible that the best is yet to come.
Game of Thrones is currently the most-successful show in the history of HBO, and the most-recent season was also the most-watched show on all of cable. The series has also in the past had a slightly-less auspicious title in the most-pirated show, but that cannot really be a shock given its global success and it airing on a premium station. There are still some things beyond the final season that HBO will need this audience for, including the upcoming prequel series that has been in the midst of casting people over the past couple of months. The earliest we imagine this series premiering in 2020, so we certainly hope that you are patient when it comes to that.
What do you think about Game of Thrones getting this sort of viewership, without there even being a new episode on the air? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. (Photo: HBO.)