• by Wayne Friedman , April 11, 2019

HBO is ramping up TV marketing and social-media efforts around the start of the last season of its big drama “Game of Thrones,” which debuts Sunday, April 14.

Total spend so far is just over $200,000, garnering 11 million impressions.

Since April 7, “Thrones” has seen 21 commercials run on TV networks, the most going to ESPN, nine airings, according to iSpot.tv. AMC has seen five airings, BBC America, three; Comedy Central, two; and ABC, one.

TV commercials for the show have run on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and “Major League Baseball,” NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” and BBC’s “Killing Eve.

In February, for “Super Bowl LIII” on CBS, HBO did a branded partnership TV commercial with Bud Light for “Thrones.” The average price for a Super Bowl 30-second commercial was $5.1 million to $5.3 million, according to reports.

On March 5, HBO launched the new season’s two-minute trailer on Facebook, YouTube and other platforms. To date, it has totaled 54.6 million views on YouTube.

Analysts expect more marketing spin to come via social-media audience efforts.

For example, media research company Magid says for the seventh season of "Thrones" in 2017,  58% of audience members reported watching the show within a “social context among other viewers.”

Magid says this places it near other big TV programming, such as NFL football (58%) and America’s Got Talent (59%). Social media-wise, this places it in the 91st percentile among all TV shows.

For many years, industry researchers placed “Thrones” as the most pirated show worldwide. “Thrones” was on hiatus in 2018. Recent data from TorrentFreak in January 2019, said AMC’s “The Walking Dead” has ascended to the top spot.