JPMorgan: Buy Time Warner despite hit show's end

Kit Harington as Jon Snow featured in the "Game of Thrones" season 6, episode 9
Helen Sloan | HBO

The end of HBO's highly successful fantasy series "Game of Thrones" won't likely be a drag on earnings for HBO and its parent company, Time Warner, as new original content is released and fills in the gap, JPMorgan told clients Wednesday.

"While we recognize 'Game of Thrones' is the most successful show in HBO's history and we have some concerns about the future of the network when the show goes off-air in 2018, we believe there remains and will be a plethora of high-quality existing and new content across many genres (miniseries, documentaries, scripted dramas, comedies, sports programming), creating a compelling offering for a broad set of consumers," wrote equity analyst Alexia Quadrani.

She explains that similar concerns about a potential "content cliff" emerged when the TV series "The Sopranos" ended in 2007, but those preoccupations were dissuaded once "Game of Thrones" premiered in 2011.