Can HBO survive the end of Game of Thrones?

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Now that cable is collapsing and HBO finds itself a late arrival to the streaming world, it struggles to catch up.” open image in gallery Kit Harington as Jon Snow in the record-breaking fantasy series ‘Game of Thrones’ Part of the problem is HBO is struggling to fill the hole left by Game of Thrones in its viewership ratings. In the book The Age of Netflix, Cory Barker and Myc Wiatrowski state that Netflix “improved its position within Hollywood’s inner circle since 2012, outbidding HBO for A-list talent”. But while Netflix’s film distribution arm has corralled a host of top-tier filmmakers, from Martin Scorsese to the Coen brothers, to develop genuinely great films, its TV output is still wildly inconsistent, almost never hitting the heights of HBO’s early 2000s peak – or, for that matter, HBO now. open image in gallery ‘The Sopranos’, which starred James Gandolfini, revolutionised the medium of TV when it debuted in 1999 DeFino says: “Their reasoning was not without merit: in order to compete with Netflix and other competitors, HBO would need to increase volume and streamline delivery.