Game of Thrones has notoriously become the most pirated show on television, with nearly triple the downloads of The Walking Dead. From HBO’s perspective, 2015 was especially disastrous, since the first four episodes of Game of Thrones Season 5 leaked the day before the first episode was set to premiere. This year, HBO is playing it safe and will not be sending out early press screeners to outlets hoping to prep reviews.
“We’re not sending out press copies this year, anywhere in the world,” HBO programming president Michael Lombardo said to Entertainment Weekly.
Lombardo also went after more analog forms of leakage, such as members of the press showing screener DVDs to friends. “When you have press copies, inevitably friends ask, ‘Can I see your copy?’ There are things that happen. We talked about the upsides and downsides. Some of the press are fans who might be disappointed, but they’ll understand.”
Some of them don’t. Let the whining begin!
I'd like to thank internet piracy for making it harder for me and my crew to do our jobs properly. https://t.co/6HelyhGMyq
— Mike Cecchini (@wayoutstuff) March 2, 2016
It seems members of the press will just have to suck it up and squeeze into that crowded bar with the rest of the world. As for the criminal uploaders and morally dubious downloaders, they’ll probably have to wait a whole 40 minutes after the premiere airs to find a solid torrent of the first Season 6 episode.
Game of Thrones premieres April 24 at 10 p.m. on HBO, or at around 11:45 for pirate miscreants frantically refreshing their torrent site.
