‘Game of Thrones’ season 5 premiere hurt potentially by online leak

There are many good things and bad things that come from being a massively successful TV show. Unfortunately, what we have for you now is a prime example of one of the bad with “Game of Thrones.”

According to reports, the first four episodes of the HBO show’s upcoming fifth season have all been leaked online, with the supposed source of it most likely being a leaked screener sent to press. This comes at a particularly sad time for the network, which invested a great deal of money into their HBO NOW streaming service. This was a way designed to reduce piracy, since it allowed for an opportunity to have viewers watch the network live without needing to join some cumbersome cable package in the process. This, coupled with the network trying to launch the new season at the same time all across the world, prove that HBO was really trying to get the piracy under control.

Unfortunately, that has not happened even in the slightest now, since this leak probably is going to make it much harder for them to sell HBO NOW subscriptions at least for the first month, and it also could cause the ratings for the premiere to decline. Granted, they don’t care about live ratings as much as other networks since they really do not have to worry about advertisers, but the big numbers are still nice to get for the sake of milestones.

Tonight, we will return with a review of the premiere … which will be posted after it actually airs.

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