James R | On 03, Nov 2013

In October, Sky added a new range of TV channels to NOW, offering TV series to stream on-demand in addition to movies.

The Entertainment Membership, which currently costs just £4.99 a month (from 29th May 2014, this renews at £6.99 per month), gave subscribers access to shows such as The Walking Dead on the FOX channel, alongside Sky’s own content, such as the original series Dracula, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

The question on everyone’s lips, though, was about one thing: is HBO’s Game of Thrones available to watch online on NOW?

The answer? Not yet.

Sky accidentally listed the programme as one of its on-demand box sets when the Entertainment Membership package was launched, which got a lot of people excited. After all, HBO’s UK strategy for home entertainment has been a curious one, which involves releasing the latest season of the show on DVD one year after its original broadcast. Only this year did Tesco’s blinkbox service add Season 3 in July – allowing non-Sky customers to see the programme eight months before the standard home entertainment release.

Sky’s listing prompted a spiralling discussion on the customer service boards. Now, NOW have confirmed that Game of Thrones will be available to stream through them – but only from March.

“It seems this was an oversight as part of the design, for which I apologise,” wrote Tom in October. “Game of Thrones is one of the most popular shows on TV, so we’d have made a massive thing out of it if it was available at this stage. The image on the page mentioned before was a mistake which has now been corrected.”

But the company’s representative went on to confirm that NOW would be offering HBO’s fantasy series on the service when Season 4 is broadcast exclusively on Sky.

“When season four of Game of Thrones airs early next year, all of the episodes will be available as part of our Catch Up offering from the week they air, so we do have the latest Game of Thrones episodes coming from then.”

For now, then, Tesco’s blinkbox remains the place to see Game of Thrones online. Tom added, though:

“Rights for shows change all the time, so it’s entirely possible that the first three seasons could be available at some point.”

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