Unless you’ve been under the proverbial rock for the last few weeks, you’ll know that the TV show Game of Thrones (GoT) has just aired its final episode. It has had eight seasons.
Clearly fans of GoT were really into the show (although I gather that they weren’t so enthusiastic about the final season). Based on the attention in the media recently, you’d think that just about everybody has been watching the show.
But is this true? Let’s do some simple arithmetic. A headline in USA Today noted the audience for the final episode set a record for HBO. The article reported that 19.3 million watched the final episode; and HBO stated that overall – including delayed viewing, for example – the average audience for each episode in Season 8 was 44.3 million people, about 10 million more than for Season 7.
Sure, 44.3 million is a lot of viewers. But there are more than 328 million people in the U.S. I don’t know if HBO figures include viewers in other countries, so let’s assume they’re all in the U.S. If so, then about 1 in 7 people has been watching GoT. Yes, only 1 in 7, or 14 %.
Now I dare say that this proportion is much higher for the 18-29 age group. But the media need to get a grip. Unless they’re targeting the young adult demographic, their overblown stories have little resonance for their audiences.