Game of Thrones is usually in the news for the right reasons, and once again, the popular HBO fantasy series has taken the world by storm by setting a brand new Guinness World Record.
Fans of the show will remember that Game of Thrones received a dubious distinction last year when Guinness World Records announced that it had become the most pirated show in the history of television. Now, the HBO series has managed to add another feather to its cap, and fortunately for the show’s creators, this time, it is not for piracy.
According to Entertainment Weekly , Game of Thrones has now become the largest TV drama simulcast , with the second episode of the fifth season having been broadcast in 173 countries at the same time. The decision to simultaneously air the new season of Game of Thrones in so many countries was taken partly to offset the earlier achievement, if we may call it an achievement, and now it appears that the show’s creators have at least succeeded on that front.
Remarkably, the previous record in the same category was bagged by another American series: CSI , which was broadcast simultaneously in just two countries in March this year. Quite a leap for American television, no?
Game of Thrones makes Guinness World Records 2016 http://t.co/7S0Mu5lY74 #GoT pic.twitter.com/XEzP7YyxTy
— Radio Times (@RadioTimes) September 1, 2015
Economic Times reported that Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams , who plays Arya Stark on the show, received the official certificate on behalf of the entire team.
“I’m so pleased for ‘Game of Thrones’ to be a part of Guinness World Records, I’m going to tell my step brother as he gets the book every year for Christmas. I can’t wait to see the look on his face!”
Guinness World Records, a reference book published annually since its inception in 1955, is known for documenting both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. Like most things, Guinness World Records has had to adapt over time and with technology, foraying into digital spaces and identifying the potential of the social media age. AV Club brilliantly summed up this transition, identifying the awards’ recent shift towards recognizing pop-culture institutions.
” ‘Game Of Thrones’ wasn’t the only pop-culture institution that racked up a new honor from the British catalogers of semi-pointless human extremity; NBC’s ‘The Voice’ has been awarded ‘most tweeted TV series in one minute,’ with more than 300,000 tweets—or 8.3 thumb-hours, assuming 10 seconds per tweet—hitting the show’s Twitter account in a 60-second span. Dr. Dre, Sandra Bullock, Sofia Vergara, and Taylor Swift, meanwhile, were all lauded for making ridiculous amounts of money in recent years.”
Hopefully, Game of Thrones will continue to stay in the record books for all the right reasons, and not the silly ones such as wildest Game of Thrones fan theories , or most amount of sibling romances ?
With Emmys already having come thick and fast this year for Game of Thrones , this latest achievement just goes to show the momentous influence the show exerts on contemporary popular culture.
[Photo: Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons]
