The Secret Behind the Success of Game of Thrones
Talk of the golden age of the TV series is widespread today. It might be due to the return of Twin Peaks' dark woods, the televised nightmare edited, disassembled and re-edited in every episode by David Lynch. Or maybe it's the hold that Black Mirror has on the collective imagination, the series that alters present reality minimally to portray terrible scenarios of a likely near future. It could be due to the clamor greeting the end of the seventh season of Game of Thrones, which was great, all the more knowing that HBO will only release the eighth season more than a year from now, which is an eternity in TV time. It is also because TV serials are a major business generating a lot of money, and account for a great portion of the economies of producers and broadcasters, making them crucial in the bouquet of content offerings by industry players.
It is necessary to dispel a myth, indeed two, however. Let's start by saying that the TV series has always been one of the most successful television products, with titles that still ignite souls: startomg from Lost, and going back in time to Dawson's Creek, Friends, Beverly Hills, ER, Dallas, Swiss Family Robinson, and even further back in time to the Italian television dramas on RAI and post-war American sitcoms. As for numbers, it is difficult to find global audience data, so we need to content ourselves with US data: the latest season of Game of Thrones, which was particularly successful, had an average of 10 million viewers, while M*A*S*H, the 1970s comedy series set during the Korean War, in its 11 seasons never fell below the average o f22 million viewers, and it's still in the Top 20 of most popular TV shows ever, with rest of the list being dominated by Super Bowls. Certainly, television has changed a lot over the last forty years, and ever-increasing supply of content has fragmented the public, but the conclusion still remains relevant: TV series have always had a wide audience and presumably will always find one.
The second myth to be dispelled is instead related to the economic variable. Sure Game of Thrones cost a lot, about $10 million per episode, but the bubble already burst in the 1990s, when ER cost $13 million per episode to make, and Friends $10 million, which largely ended in the pockets of the six protagonists. In short, there would seem to be nothing new in the television scene. But there is something really relevant happening. The fact is that TV series are especially loved by those same millennials whose attention traditional TV broadcasters have a hard time catching. And this for two main reasons, both linked to the emergence and development of the internet.
On the one hand, video-on-demand, the main mode of television enjoyment among young people today. It was invented in the early 2000s when those who were young then began to illegally download audio and video content from the Internet. When on-demand viewing is possible, users are more likely to be after fiction products that are frozen in time, unlike, say, TV news, reality and talent shows, which get old immediately and feel the pinch of competition on the web (and so they are watched, if at all, on live streaming channels).
On the other hand, the increasing importance of subcultural dynamics in peer relations. In other words, the audience being split in groups of fans. They have always existed, but before it was difficult for them to find ways to discuss and exchange ideas. With the arrival of the Internet, first in the forums and then in social networks, they found places where they could discuss and nurture their interest in and passion for popular cultural products. And there is nothing that lights up minds and souls like the complex, well-built storyworld of an entertaining TV series, which is truly the ideal-type of the cultural product in our age.