‘Game of Thrones’ season 4 nearly at ‘The Walking Dead’ levels with ratings

While we’ve touted some of the “Game of Thrones” series-high ratings for much of the past several weeks, there has always been one interesting caveat with it: Oftentimes, the ratings are often so much better than they even initially look.

Unlike most other networks, the majority of HBO’s viewers are not tuning in live for its programming. they have multiple replays across several networks, HBO GO subscribers, and many watching On-Demand. In short, you have the freedom to watch the programming literally whenever you want, and if you can afford an HBO subscription, then you can most likely afford to have a million different options to watch TV at your disposal.

Overall, episodes of season 4 of “Game of Thrones” right now (per The Hollywood Reporter) are drawing around 18 million viewers a week, which puts the show much closer to “The Walking Dead” than it was with the live numbers only. This show could even in theory surpass it by the end of the season, but it is exceptionally hard to compare something on HBO with multiple airings and so many different ways to accumulate data to something on AMC where there are advertisements.

One other interesting thing to mention here? It is especially hard to compare the two when it comes to the 18-49 demographic that defines most of TV. While HBO does keep track of this data in theory, they do not often publicize all of it since it doesn’t matter as much to them. The demo is mostly for advertisers, and since they don’t have those, what matters most to them is having stuff that draws subscribers and buzz to the network.

What do you think about these numbers? Share below, and be sure to head over here to grab some more updates when it comes to “Game of Thrones.” Also, you can sign up to get some further throne-worthy news via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: HBO