The day has finally arrived! Game of Thrones premieres TONIGHT! To prepare, check out this video from Key & Peele, in which the Valets summarize Seasons 1-4 of Game of Thrones in the best way ever. (WARNING: this is the uncensored version; also SPOILERS) You should also check out Jill’s write-up right here at The Mary Sue on what to expect from the S5 premiere.
Season 5 isn’t just premiering in the US, but will be simulcast all over the world in 170 countries! What’s more, according to c|net, the entire season will be simulcast:
The HBO networks include HBO Asia, HBO Canada, HBO Europe, HBO Latin America, HBO Netherlands and HBO Nordic. Participating international “Home of HBO” partners are: M-Net (Africa), Foxtel (Australia), Telenet (Belgium in Flemish), Orange (France), 365 Media (Iceland), DBS (Israel) plus Sky Deutschland, Sky Italia and SKY New Zealand. HBO licensing partners in the simulcast include: Betv (Belgium in French), Intervision (Greece), Amedia (Russia) and DTS (Spain).
The premiere episode airs at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday April 12, which translates to 11 a.m. AEST on Monday April 13 in Australia and a coffee-requiring 2 a.m. BST on Monday April 13 in the UK.
Sorry, UK. You’ll have to wait a day.
This, as well as the creation of HBO Now was all done to attempt to limit piracy on the show, which last year became the most pirated show ever, with 8.1 Million downloads. However, that hasn’t stopped you dirty, dirty pirates. WinterIsComing.net reports that 4 episodes that were released slightly in advance as screeners have already made their way onto piracy sites as of around 9PM ET last night and been downloaded over 500, 000 times.
This is a huge setback for HBO, which has set up an unprecedented simulcast in over 170 countries where the show airs (that’s basically all of them, sans the UK) in order to cut back on the day after piracy that comes from nearly everyone to both the east and west of the US having to wait a full 24 hours for the show to air at 9pm the day after in their countries. And of course, also to their latest venture, HBO Now, to try and up the number of cheaper legals ways to watch the show along with it. Waiting to release the episode until only 24 hours before airtime (and over the weekend) also puts HBO at a disadvantage when dealing with the problem, since by this time tomorrow, we would expect piracy sites to be flooded with copies of the first episode anyway.
C’mon, y’all! To quote Mitch Hedberg: I saw a wino eating grapes the other day, and I said ‘Dude, you got to WAIT.’
*sigh* Well, for the five of you who have yet to see the premiere, we can watch the simulcast together at 9PM ET tonight. ‘Til then, good luck staying spoiler-free!
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