Game of Thrones producer Frank Doelger has spoken about the life span of the HBO series, and predicts four more years.

At the BAFTA Television awards earlier this week, Game of Thrones picked up the Radio Times Award (but lost out to Girls for Best International Programme).

Speaking to Radio Times at the event, producer Frank Doelger revealed that talks about the projected run of the series are currently in process.

“[The number of series] is being discussed as we speak,” Doelger said. “The third season was the first half of book three, season four will be the second part of book three. George R.R. Martin has written books four and five; six and seven are pending.”

While there is obviously an abundance of source material, fans hoping for 10+ years of Thrones might be left disappointed.

“I would hope that, if we all survive, and if the audience stays with us we’ll probably get through to seven seasons,” Doelger announced.

Would this include the final two instalments of the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, which Martin has not yet finished writing? Doelger did not say.

So let’s do the math. If Game of Thrones season 4 takes us through the third book in the series (A Storm of Swords), that leaves three seasons for the remaining four books in the saga.

We know that the writers are already speeding up the story, and have in some cases even incorporated plot points from the fifth novel into season 3.

However, three seasons (30 episodes) still seems a surprisingly short amount of time if they plan to tell the story to the end – which the writers have previously stated that they plan to do, even if that means overtaking Martin.

Although many of the storylines from A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons could easily be done away with, one of the benefits of telling this story through the medium of television as opposed to movies is that fans get to experience those smaller developments and character moments, as opposed to just being treated to the cliffsnotes version.

What do you think? Are seven seasons enough to do the series justice, or would you like to see Game of Thrones carry on for a few more years?