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HBO announced April 27 that 18.1 million viewers tuned in to all the various, legal ways to watch the April 12 season premiere. In a press release from the premium cable subscriber, they outlined that the show stacked up even better than the previous season.

GAME OF THRONES®' highly anticipated fifth season premiere conquered 18.1 million viewers to-date (Linear Plays + Live+7 DVR + HBO On Demand/HBO GO + HBO NOW). That's approximately 1.2 million viewers more when compared to last year's first episode after a similar period of time (16.9 million). GAME OF THRONES ultimately averaged a gross audience of 19.1 million viewers per episode for season 4, becoming the most watched season of an HBO series on record.

This announcement comes after the first four episodes of the new season leaked onto the Internet, allowing any pirate to circumvent HBO's paywall and watch at their leisure. The news also comes after HBO sent out numerous 'take down' notices to users of the live-streaming app Periscope and their distributions of Game of Thrones episodes.

So, Game of Thrones is somehow still growing. Even though every single character will surely die in any given episode. Welcome newbies!

Just about everyone was excited for the return of Game of Thrones last weekend, but HBO has a hard time relaxing in its success of the mega-hit show.

When the Twitter-developed, live streaming Periscope app released March 26 it may have seemed to most of us like a way to show off your smoking. A few enterprising individuals thought it might serve a better purpose showing off the return to Westeros.

Well, the BBC reported this week that HBO sent out many 'take down' notices to those viewers who wanted to share their experience. The premium cable giant also woefully shook their heavy head (bedecked with jeweled pity crows, no doubt) over the lack of control they had of their content on Periscope.

"In general, we feel developers should have tools which proactively prevent mass copyright infringement from occurring on their apps and not be solely reliant upon notifications," HBO said in a statement.

This came only a few days after the first four episodes of the upcoming season leaked online.

But even with these gaps in their distribution, HBO is far, far from a sinking ship. This is more akin to someone drinking a dribble glass on a cruise ship.