After the Thrones is an American live televisionaftershow that premiered on April 25, 2016, and ended on June 28, 2016. It was hosted by Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan who discussed episodes of the HBOtelevision seriesGame of Thrones. The talk show is executive produced by Bill Simmons and Eric Weinberger. Greenwald and Ryan previously hosted a podcast version of the show titled Watch the Thrones on Simmons' Grantland website. A similar talk show called Thronecast airs on British channel Sky Atlantic, which also discusses episodes of Game of Thrones. The talk show was made available to HBO and HBO Now subscribers, and airs on the Monday following each episode of Game of Thrones. After the show's cancellation, Greenwald and Ryan, along with Simmons, made a similar live streamvideo podcast for distribution on Twitter called Talk the Thrones. Although it covers the same subject matter, it is a different production.
Broadcast and format
The series features hosts Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan from the upcoming sports and pop culture website, The Ringer created by Bill Simmons, discussing episodes of the HBO fantasydramaGame of Thrones. Following the success of similar shows such as Talking Dead, which serves as a network sanctioned discussion of the show, HBO decided to introduce its own version of the format in which the hosts provide a "lively, humorous and sophisticated look" at the previous night's episode. The show airs on the stand-alone streaming service HBO Now on the Monday following each episode of the show's sixth season, which itself airs on Sundays. Greenwald and Ryan previously hosted a similar version of the show for Simmons' now-defunct sports and pop culture website Grantland, titled "Watch the Thrones", in a podcast format. Previous "Watch the Thrones" guests Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion are also part of the show. The series began on Monday, April 25, 2016, on HBO Now, HBO Go, HBO On Demand and HBO. The stated purpose of the show is to "recap the latest episode, explaining the who, what, when and where, exploring the complicated politics and history of Thrones, and offering absurd and not-so-absurd theories about future episodes." For the seventh season of Game of Thrones, the after show changed its name to Talk the Thrones and moved from HBO to the social media site Twitter, where it will stream live every week after an episode airs. Simmons said that "We love Game of Thrones and we love the way Twitter is thinking about content right now, so we jumped at the chance to blow out our Thrones show into an interactive multimedia experience — something that reacts immediately to what just happened, almost like a postgame show in sports - Nobody is equipped to do that better than Twitter. It's the natural evolution of what we had already established with Chris, Andy, Mallory and Jason."
