Some incorrect claims about Game of Thrones, debunked

The screenshot has been shared more than 1,000 times from various accounts, including widely-followed sports broadcaster Deji Faremi, which we've archived here .

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A screenshot taken on April 30, 2019 showing a tweet with the widely-shared screenshot on GoT records

The same screenshot has been circulating on Facebook, Instagram, in WhatsApp groups, and on the Nairaland message board, one of Nigeria’s most-visited sites.

Let’s start with its first claim.

No, Forbes didn’t report that 1.2 billion people were rewatching the whole series

No such report exists. US business magazine Forbes has published a large number of articles about Game of Thrones since the series premiered in 2011, and indeed published this recent piece which comments on the difficulty of catching up on all previous 67 episodes before the start of series 8 on April 14.

But we found no trace of a Forbes report claiming that 1.2 billion people around the world were currently rewatching the series from the start.

Along with no Forbes report citing the figure, we also found no such estimate on the total number of people re-watching the series from the start from HBO, the US TV network which airs Game of Thrones.

It’s difficult to see how anyone could accurately measure the number of people currently re-watching the series if the number of people watching on DVD were included alongside those streaming it.  It might be easier just to look at the number of times the series has been streamed, which brings us on to the second claim in the post.

Has GoT been streamed four billion times?

The post says the show has racked up four billion views on “the streaming websites of the show”.

Game of Thrones has certainly racked up huge viewing figures for HBO, including a record 17.4 million viewers for the first episode of the eighth and final season watching across various HBO platforms.

We asked HBO to confirm global all-time streaming figures since the show first aired on April 17, 2011.

“I can tell you the figures you request do not exist,” Mara Mikialian, senior vice president at HBO, told AFP.

So there’s no conclusive answer on this one -- but if illegal downloads are taken into account, the estimate might not be so crazy.

Game of Thrones has been repeatedly ranked as the world’s most pirated television show in recent years: illegal streams and downloads of series seven alone topped one billion in 2017, according to an anti-piracy analysis firm.

Was the final season trailer viewed 81 million times in 24 hours?

Yes, this claim is true. The two-minute Season 8 trailer set another HBO record, racking up 81 million views across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube combined.

The previous record was held by the Game of Thrones season 7 trailer, which was seen 61 million times in 24 hours back in 2017.

Is Game of Thrones broadcast in 173 countries?

This one is actually an understatement. According to HBO, Game of Thrones is broadcast in 207 countries and territories and simulcast in 194 countries and territories.

Is it ‘the most awarded show in TV history’?

That one is difficult to answer as it depends on which awards are being counted. You could come to very different conclusions by either counting only prizes collected at major prestigious events or by adding various awards from ceremonies all around the world.

HBO says that over the first seven seasons, the show has received 132 Emmy nominations and 47 wins; seven Golden Globe nominations and one win; 18 SAG Award nominations and seven wins; 17 Critics’ Choice Award nominations and one win; and seven AFI award wins.

The screenshot’s claim of 715 nominations and 239 wins appears to come from a Wikipedia page which counts a wider selection of prizes.

In terms of Emmys alone, Game of Thrones sits behind Saturday Night Live as the most Emmy awarded show in TV history.

Has Game of Thrones won Oscars and Guinness World Records awards?

The Oscars are for films and not TV shows, so no, it hasn’t won any Oscars.

As for the screenshot’s claim that it has won six Guinness World Records, it actually currently has at least 10 to its name, including most in-demand TV show, most Emmy awards for a drama series and most pirated TV show.

Did CNN report that half of the planet will watch the season finale?

AFP found no report by CNN claiming that half of the world population -- more than 3.5 billion people -- will watch the Game of Thrones finale.

As for the claim that Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth and Beyonce will all be watching: that remains to be seen.

Obama is a GoT fan and the show’s creators, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, revealed in 2016 that the then president had requested and received advance copies of the latest episodes at the time.

"When the commander-in-chief says, 'I want to see advance episodes,' what are you going to do?" Benioff said.

Beyonce and her husband Jay-Z are also reportedly fans of the series.

Queen Elizabeth II, however, appears to be less familiar with it. Buckingham Palace declined to confirm whether or not she watched the show when she visited the set of Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland in 2014.

Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark, said her conversation with the British monarch suggested the Queen was not a fan.

"She turns to me and says, ‘What do you do?’ I was like ‘Oh this is awkward, because I’m an actress in the series of the set that you’re on,” Williams said in an interview.