Game of Thrones has once again taken the award for Most Pirated TV Show on the Internet, for the fifth year in a row. TorrentFreak reports steady numbers of illegal downloads, proving that even half a decade on, Thrones continues to hold its own.
According to statistics compiled via BitTorrent, Game of Thrones remains the most pirated TV show on the internet, with The Walking Dead in second place, and newcomer Westworld coming third.
The numbers have remained steady, with no significant growth on last year, but this doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any increase in piracy. TorrentFreak comments these numbers are likely due to the fact more people have been switching from torrents to streaming sites over the past few months. There has also been a continuation in the trend of downloaders increasingly preferring high-quality video. In recent years, many torrenters have made the move from 480p to 720p and 1080p videos, thanks to better broadband availability.
The highest number of people actively sharing an episode of Game of Thrones was 350,000, just after the season finale became available online. It seems that the number of fans willing to pay the Iron Price for the episodes isn’t going to drop any time soon!
For a full list of the most downloaded TV shows of 2016, check out the TorrentFreak article.
Yay it’s always nice to keep the crown lol!
ummm…..Congrats?
Happy name day to the Kit in the North btw!
I guess this is a good thing?! And Happy 30th Name Day to our King in the North and beautiful man, Kit Harington!!????
‘Pay the Iron Price’
Lol that’s actually brilliant at capturing the hypocrisy and obvious temptations that come with pirating.
Ultimately, whilst it’s easier to pirate a show than to watch it legitimately, piracy will run rampant. Attempts to quash it do nothing to the people who don’t support the show, but punish those who do. I respect the GOT approach to celebrating their audience reach, knowing they;ll be supported elsewhere by these pirates.
And i shall be joining them again next year since ,in their infinite wisdom, HBO has decided they dont want my money and leave my country! Brilliant!
No way i am going to wait till the bluray comes out. That would force me to stay off the internet for half a year at least!
It is nice to break even this record. Is there any area where this show is not successuful?
mau,
I don’t know, but I’d like a GoT theme park or amusement park ride.
Hahaha @ “Iron price”..
Happy name day to the one true king in the Norf…Hope you get to celebrate the day with the special Old Nan’s pie, the one with peas n unions
You’re welcome
Happy birthday Christopher Harrington!
King of the North!! Even though Jon Snow is the scion of an incestuous clan of dragon riding tyrants!
◎ ☉ ● None of it makes any sense nor bodes well, but it does make for great drama, which is all that matters really.
Btw, if my previous comment makes no sense, I sincerely apologize in advance for New Year’s Eve. 😉
I’m sure it is the most pirated show around since it’s so popular AND on a premium channel ppl don’t like to pay extra for. However as someone who has used torrents frequently and been affected by all the heavy shutdowns of websites this year, Torrentfreak is far from the type of source I’d be confident citing as facts.
My bet is that the correlation between “legitimate” viewing and pirated viewing is very strong in general. That is, at any given time, the most pirated TV shows are going to the the pay-channel shows with the highest recognized ratings.
Flayed Potatoes,
Something like Westworld when you can kill Joffrey again and again!!!
Has anyone else noticed that there are less spoilers these days?! I guess they are shooting indoors. Which of the cast members is still on set?
I thought they are off until January.
Right now everyone is buzzing about another leaker saying:
When I think of pirates I think of penis.
My wife has family in the Philippines and they come and visit us for a week every year and they always want to watch the latest GoT season. So we do a marathon of the latest season even though they have already watched it back in the PI. It’s because they edit out all the violence and sex so they get the PG or PG13 version and want the show the way it was meant to be seen. My story has no real point but it’s fun for me to watch their reaction and I think it’s pirated by a lot of folks in other countries because they don’t want the watered down versions they are offered.
Grail King,
If that is true, I like the implications.
Konna,
They’re all taking a break for the holidays 🙂 Activity should resume in January I think.
Konna,
No one is on set. Christmas break, filming resumes sometime in the new year. Enjoy the vacation. 🙂
Sue the Fury,
*puts on grumpy old man voice with proper rasping wheez* In my day, actors worked when they were told to work! None of this “holiday” stuff: that’s for people with real jobs, not a bunch of mamby pamby’s in costumes.
Get off of my lawn!
You are supposed to tell your shrink that, not us.
The chaos happening on reddit right now is entertaining, to say the least. There are new “leakers” springing up everyday, in fact more than one per day!! Lmao.
ghost of winterfell,
Leakerbowl!
I’m in Nigeria and we pretty much have no choice but to download episodes of GoT off torrent sites. i’d ve been happy to subscribe to a cable network if we’d HBO.
GoT is much more than just a show for many of us.