Game of Thrones: the end is coming for record-breaking HBO fantasy phenomenon

Game of Thrones is the most expensive, most watched, most pirated – and most award-festooned – fictional television series in history. As it starts its eighth and final season on Sunday on the United States cable channel, HBO, we look back on its record-breaking run. ‘Game of Thrones’: What the actors have said from day one Massive ratings First broadcast on the US cable channel, HBO, in 2011, Game of Thrones – or GoT to its fans – was not an overnight phenomenon. But its audiences have never stopped growing and by 2014 it had overtaken HBO’s flagship hit,The Sopranos, shown from 1999-2007. How HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ has turned Northern Ireland into a tourism hot spot By its seventh season in 2017, viewing figures for Game of Thrones were stratospheric. Its final episode set an all-time US record for premium cable television with 16.5 million people watching live or streaming on the day of transmission and 15 million more tuning in later. Viewing records also tumbled in many of the 186 countries in which it was shown, with Britain’s Sky Atlantic and OCS in France showing episodes in the middle of the night in sync with their US premieres. However, the figures become truly mind-boggling when illegal downloading is taken into account, with more than one billion people watching pirated copies of the seventh season. Colossal budgets The eighth run-out for Game of Thrones, based on the George R.R. Martin fantasy series of novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, is reportedly the most expensive season of television ever shot, with a budget of US$15 million per episode, taking the overall season cost to US$90 million. Although much of this has gone on lavish locations and special effects, the final two episodes will be one hour 20 minutes long – almost the length of Hollywood feature films. HBO knows there is little danger of it not getting is money back, with the franchise so far earning them more than US$1 billion, according to reports. The massive investment has also brought the series a record-breaking collection of 47 Emmy Awards from 128 nominations. Lannister, Targaryen, Stark fans – choose your sneakers Top secret After the leak of four episodes of season five before it was broadcast, the producers overhauled their security. To throw hackers and pirates off the scent, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have filmed several versions of the final episode, a tactic already used for The Sopranos and AMC’s Breaking Bad, shown from 2008 to 2013. Actress Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, admitted that even she had been fooled into believing a red-herring version of the denouement. To make sure no one was snooping, the producers took measures to stop drones overflying their shoots. Game of Tourists The series has also been a boon for tourism, particularly in Northern Ireland, where much of the series was shot, with fans flooding in to visit locations in the region which had previously been best known for its violent sectarian past. Iceland and the Spanish cities of Girona, in the Catalan north, and Osuna, near Seville, have seen their visitor numbers rocket from special Game of Thrones tours. However, the Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik, the setting for King’s Landing, the capital of the fictional continent of Westeros, discovered you can have too much of a good thing. It has had to put limits on the number of visitors it can receive in its picturesque medieval centre. Johnnie Walker’s White Walker ‘Game of Thrones’ whisky is here Dothraki baby names Dogs, goldfish and lots of babies have also been named after characters from the series, with Arya – together with its alternative spelling Aria – entering the top 20 most popular names for girls in Britain last year. Khaleesi, the honorary title in the imaginary Dothraki language given to Daenerys Targaryen, has also become popular, with 466 little girls in the US and 77 in France named after the queen of dragons last year. The series has been something of a mixed blessing for pets, too. Peter Dinklage, who plays “the Imp”, Tyrion Lannister, had to appeal to fans to stop buying Siberian husky dogs who look similar to the dire wolves in the show. Animal rights campaigners complained that the number of huskies left abandoned in Britain has risen seven-fold since the show started. Presidential fans While he was still in the White House, former US president Barack Obama admitted to being a big fan of the series. He even asked HBO to bend its strict rules to allow him a sneak preview of the sixth season. Centuries-old ‘Game of Thrones’ castle in Northern Ireland up for sale His successor in the Oval Office, Donald Trump, has made wide use of the “Winter is coming” motto of the House of Stark. Much to the irritation of the channel and several of its actors, the US president has adapted the line several times in his tweets, including about Iran – “sanctions are coming” – and his border wall with Mexico: “The wall is coming.” However, Trump does not appear to have learned the lesson of the Game of Thrones wall, which has proved utterly ineffective against illegal immigration of Wildlings and zombie White Walkers. Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

Game of Thrones: the end is coming for record-breaking HBO fantasy phenomenon

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} As eighth and final season of hit HBO fantasy series starts on Sunday, we look back at its award-winning run, which has gained huge audiences in 186 nations worldwide

As eighth and final season of hit HBO fantasy series starts on Sunday, we look back at its award-winning run, which has gained huge audiences in 186 nations worldwide