‘Game of Thrones’ season 3 finale ratings up, but fail to set record

Following the Red Wedding episode of “Game of Thrones” last week, there were all sorts of threats from people around the country to stop watching the show thanks to Robb Stark’s death.

So did that actually happen? Not exactly. Instead, the HBO series nearly set a new series high with 5.4 million viewers, just 100,000 viewers away of tying its previous mark from a few weeks ago. There is no information right now about the 18-49 demographic, but that really does not matter unless you just like to compare it against other series. HBO is subscription-based, and all they care about are the number of people who are actually going out to purchase their network on various cable packages.

As for why the show failed to set a new high, the simple things to blame are summer as well as the NBA Finals … though we personally just think it’s the number of people willing to pay for HBO. We don’t have to emphasize here just how many people there are that watch this show and don’t actually own the network.

The great news for the show is that this still is an increase of 28% from the season 2 finale audience, with there being still over 9 months for viewers to catch up on the series before season 4 (or buy HBO), we anticipate higher ratings again when the new season picks up. The only thing that may hurt them is the feeling of disappointment that the finale did not exactly do much to push the story forward following “The Rains of Castamere.” Our thinking? That Jaime Lannister could have lost his other hand, and still people would have complained that the hour wasn’t as exciting.

If you want to take a look forward to season 4 of “Game of Thrones,” the best way to do so is to head on over to the link here.

Photo: HBO