Game of Thrones
season 8 is now beyond us, and we’ve come to accept HBO ruined the biggest TV show ever created. Again, it’s not the ending that’s upsetting, but the writing of this whole season. That’s something HBO is yet to address, as the company has been focusing on the divisive nature of the finale, rather than dealing with actual criticism. Also, HBO hasn’t really acknowledged that infamous petition more than 1.5 million people signed. Maybe the best way to prove how annoyed fans are with their favorite series is to look at the dramatic spike in Google searches for “how to cancel HBO”.
In an interview with Deadline, HBO programming president Casey Bloys downplayed an upcoming dip in subscriptions.
DEADLINE: Back to Game of Thrones. You aired a promo before the finale reminding viewers of the other shows you have on so they stick around. Do you expect subscriber dip after the end of GoT?
BLOYS: Historically what we have seen is, before any kind of tentpole show like Game of Thrones, True Detective, Westworld — obviously Game of Thrones is the biggest — there is usually an uptick of subscriptions for the show and then down afterwards. Usually what we are expecting is a net gain. So there are absolutely people who watched HBO for Game of Thrones, but historically, we usually end up with a net gain, and that’s what I expect in this case as well.
Also historically, no other Game of Thrones was as bad as season 8. Meanwhile, fans on Reddit are already posting proof they’ve canceled their subscription.
Yeah, fuck off. from freefolk
As you’ll notice in the following graph, there’s a marked uptick in searches. Game of Thrones aired on April 17th, 2011, end ended last week, so the following graph covers the entire duration of the series.
More people are looking at canceling HBO now than they ever did in the entire history of Game of Thrones. The previous biggest search spike for how to cancel HBO occurred in August-September of 2017, a few months after season 7 ended.
Let’s look at the same graph and add searches to cancel Netflix (in red) — Netflix “wins” easily overall. But HBO probably doesn’t care about that right now.
We’ve also narrowed down the period to these six weeks of Game of Thrones, and the graph paints the same picture.
Spikes in Google searches for canceling HBO have registered every week, almost matching the same search for Netflix, but it’s incomparable to what happened after the final season ended.
