Though I found the evolving excuses of the “Game of Thrones” producers to be laughably incoherent and illogical, it does look as though HBO was caught off guard and is now taking some proactive steps to remedy the situation:
The now infamous Episode 10 from the first season of HBO’s hit fantasy series Game Of Thrones featuring the head of former president George W. Bush as a prop in a beheading scene, has been pulled from all digital platforms, including HBO Go and iTunes. Additionally, shipments of the DVD box set featuring the show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ commentary that drew attention to the use of the head as a prop, have been halted as HBO continues to mitigate the damage from the controversy.
After the utter debacle that was “Game Change,” a purely dishonest hit-job against Sarah Palin and an obvious in-kind political contribution to Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, HBO knows it is suffering a brand problem with those of us who are not radical leftists:
The findings regarding HBO and Showtime appear to make sense when compared with a poll that Experian Simmons took for The Hollywood Reporter two years ago, where HBO shows like Entourage (which ended in September) and Showtime offerings like Dexter were well-liked by Democrats but not by Republicans. HBO also recently took flak from the right for Game Change, a mostly unflattering look at Sarah Palin, so that also might have influenced the results.
Netflix Streaming, Redbox, and the like are very real threats to a network pretty much used to owning a large part of the entertainment all to itself. People have choices now, we’re a very divided nation politically, and conservatives are up-to-here with Hollywood’s insults and bullying.
There’s also New Media, which can make things like playing with the prosthetic head of a former president a very big story.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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