So that's a pretty major advantage for "Game of Thrones," right?
Well, it's not like "The Sopranos" is without advantages. Before 2004, in its not-exactly-infinite-wisdom, Nielsen measured all of the channels within HBO's universe as a single entity. So if "The Sopranos" aired on a Sunday night, you'd get ratings, but they'd also include HBO2, HBO3, HBOCZECH, anything with an HBO in it. So if 7 million people were watching "The Sopranos" and 200,000 people were watching an airing of "House 2: The Second Story," Nielsen spit out 7.2 million viewers for HBO's ratings and that's what we reported "The Sopranos" did. There were no alternatives.
As a result, that 18.2 million number for "The Sopranos"? It's really inexact and probably the actual gross viewership was lower, though we don't have a clue exactly how much lower. HBO waited to make its grand proclamation of "Game of Thrones" supremacy until after "GoT" passed the artificial 18.2 million threshold, but there's a good chance that "GoT" has been out-grossing "The Sopranos" for a while now, or at least for much of this season, since "Game of Thrones" had an average gross audience of 14.4 million viewers for last season.
Read more at
http://www.hitfix.com/the-fien-prin...-the-sopranos-sorta-kinda#FQHqbXHXKBGYlihM.99