A bombshell has fallen in the small world of television reviewing: HBO has stopped screeners for critics for season 6 of Game of Thrones. This is largely the result of well-publicized leaks from previous seasons—particularly the last season, in which the first four episodes were leaked weeks before the premiere—but for many critics the practice of receiving episodes early allowed them to spend more time considering and crafting their reviews. Now all the critics—at least, so far as we know—will have to write their reviews after episodes air.
In previous seasons, HBO’s provided anywhere from two to four episodes of the season in advance of the air date to critics. After that, a handful of high profile reviewers would continue to receive episodes on an episode-by-episode basis, allowing them to provide almost instant analysis as soon as an episode was completed; other reviewers would have to leave their reviews for the day after or, if sufficiently dedicated/insane (e.g. us), would work through the night to get their coverage out. But against that, the fact that leaks have happened to such a high-profile show must certainty have weighed heavily on the executives and showrunners. We know that when a snafu at an HBO affiliate in Europe led to the early release of a 2nd season episode, Benioff and Weiss were said to have been livid about it and wanted to prevent episodes going out in advance of the U.S. air date. They were walked back from that, but now four years later it looks like their feelings have won out.
Of course, as critic Alan Sepinwall notes, all signs point to a non-press source for last year’s high profile leak, and indeed all leaks that I can recall seem traceable to the distribution network for the episodes. HBO has deals with many foreign networks around the world to air its shows in those territories, and their programming departments and rights executives often receive early copies of these episodes. To do that requires a duplication process to quickly produce DVDs with the episodes, which then have to be mailed out, and while some of that process is done internally by HBO’s own duplication facilities, the end results is that the number of hands the episodes pass through before the episodes officially air is substantial. Another aspect of foreign distribution, as well, is subtitling and dubbing: all of those would require episodes early to be able to get their work done, and while the quality of the episodes those facilities get are generally extremely poor and heavily watermarked, somewhere someone is creating those ugly copies from high-quality copies…
Ultimately, even without the press seeing the episodes early, the number of people with early access to the episodes certainly numbers in the hundreds. It’s understandable, then, why critics might be peeved. However, while cutting critics out of the equation may not directly stop leaks for this upcoming season, reducing the number of possible suspects if a leak were to happen may make leaking a much riskier proposition for people who work with or have associations with foreign broadcasters, translation firms, post-production, duplication facilties, etc. The ultimate test will be whether this season gets through without any substantial leaks.