Blog: Game of Thrones

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Online culture is fragmenting: Why White Lotus spoilers are not flooding the internet

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Hanna Kahlert

9 Apr 2025

Cultural trends

Key takeaways from this blog: Audience fragmentation is growing, with platforms like TikTok losing influence and shows like White Lotus thriving in niche, offline conversations Oversaturation of content is making it hard for entertainment to create shared cultural moments As MIDiA explores in our 'Analogue revival' report , Culture is moving offline, as people seek real-world connections and entertainment companies need to adapt to a fragmented digital landscape White Lotus is not the internet viral darling that shows like Tiger King or Game of Thrones (GoT) once were.

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House of spoilers: Leaks are bad for services, but good for fans

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Hanna Kahlert

26 Oct 2022

The finale of House of the Dragon aired this Sunday (or Monday, for countries to the east of the US), culminating a wildly successful first season of HBO’s first Game of Thrones spinoff. To be specific; the official version aired Sunday / Monday in 4K.

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How House of the Dragon is feeding into streaming‘s new reality

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Tim Mulligan

24 Aug 2022

House of the Dragon

Warner Bros. Discovery

Game of Thrones

This Sunday saw the premiere of House of the Dragon , HBO’s latest instalment of the Game of Thrones story world. Set as a prequel to the global hit fantasy series, House of the Dragon is positioned as an HBO Max exclusive in all its current markets.

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Hate-watching: The rise of contextual consumption

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Hanna Kahlert

24 Aug 2022

In the over-saturated entertainment ecosystem , attention is the name of the game. All propositions are competing for the most focused attention, striving for more dynamic engagement , and trying to find and monetise superfans for all that they are worth.

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The content versus culture conundrum

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Hanna Kahlert

3 Jun 2021

Creating something which will please audiences in the moment and also have resonant staying power among the surrounding culture is a puzzle faced by the content strategists of today. It is also the age-old struggle of artists throughout history.

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Is sci-fi about to have its Game of Thrones moment?

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Tim Mulligan

11 Feb 2021

We are only just into the second month of 2021, and already the TV engagement landscape environment is starting to transform into something distinctly different from 2020. The sci-fi genre, long seen as a category with niche TV appeal (in much the same way fantasy was up until 2010), has suddenly come to the fore among US audiences.

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Netflix Bewitches the Internet

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Tim Mulligan

9 Jan 2020

Andrzej Sapkowski

Netflix, the current subscription video on demand (SVOD) global leader, has topped Wikipedia searches for the second week of 2020 with its new fantasy scripted drama original, The Witcher . The show is based upon a story universe created by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, which originated in novel form and has since morphed into – among other adaptations – a hugely popular game franchise with 40 million unit sales to date.

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Why Apple Wants The Father of Dragons On Board

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Tim Mulligan

20 Nov 2019

Game of Thrones

The November 1 st launch of Apple TV+ has thrust the world’s leading personal device company into the increasingly frenetic world of TV. While the TV networks have long battled for supremacy over ratings and talent, leading SVOD service Netflix aggravated the market by aggressively bidding for exclusive production deals with leading show runners and their production companies.

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Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) November 4th 2019

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Mark Mulligan

4 Nov 2019

Game of Thrones

Music manager shift: A new ‘Managing Expectations’ report from the MMF indicates the role of music managers is transforming. Headline: music managers are doing an ever wider and more complex range of tasks.

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Should Streaming Services Produce TV Shows in a Linear Format?

Amanda Stears

17 Jul 2019

Game of Thrones

Streaming video on demand (SVOD) giant Netflix is famous for cultivating the binge-watch phenomenon, fuelled by the popularity of its originals. In the pre-streaming era, people were dependent on traditional scheduled TV for engaging with TV shows.

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HBO, Game of Thrones and the Warner Media D2C Dilemma

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Tim Mulligan

26 Jun 2019

Game of Thrones

May 2019 saw the controversial final episode of HBO’s flagship scripted drama series, Game of Thrones. With the final season alone taking up an estimated quarter of HBO’s entire original content budget, Warner Media’s premium TV network invested heavily in transforming a niche TV show into the flagship title for the whole network.

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Music Sync: A Market Ripe for Change

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Mark Mulligan

3 May 2019

Florence and the machine

Game of Thrones

music publishers

Florence and the Machine’s performance of Jenny of Oldstones, which appeared over the closing credits of the April 21st HBO’s Game Of Thrones episode, has registered the most Shazams in 24 hours ever.

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The Top TV Shows Of 2017

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Tim Mulligan

20 Dec 2017

Game of Thrones

For the past 15 months MIDiA Research has been tracking every quarter more than 60 leading TV shows across the US, UK, Canada and Australia. With the fragmentation of TV audiences and the rise of streaming video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video that are notoriously guarded with their data, it is becoming progressively more difficult for TV companies and advertisers to know just how popular individual TV shows actually are.

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Brand Awareness Is The Other Side Of Fandom

Tim Mulligan

7 Nov 2017

Game of Thrones

One of the many metrics we track in our new trends and insights offering, Video Trends by MIDiA , is the level of awareness audiences have of a TV show in a market. TV show awareness among consumers is the flipside of fandom.

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Game of Thrones Is Not The Most Popular TV Show

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Tim Mulligan

27 Oct 2017

Game of Thrones

The TV industry is currently undergoing a period of disruption as profound as what the music industry experienced in the first decade of this millennium, and it has all been led by the streaming revolution.

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What The New Season Of Game Of Thrones Tells Us About YouTube Engagement

Tim Mulligan

20 Jul 2017

Game of Thrones

YouTube has been notoriously coy about its user growth, with the official PR line for the company still stating that it has ‘Over one billion users.’ For a company that has been the driving force behind online video consumption for the last 12 years, YouTube has been both derided for the superficiality of its video content and for using its safe harbour privileges to undermine existing media models.

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