The highest number of people actively sharing an episode across several torrents was 350,000 at its peak.
Continuing the trend, for the fifth consecutive year, popular television series, Game of Thrones, has become the most illegally downloaded TV show. It may not come as a surprise at all, Torrent Freak‘s annual report reveals that the TV show saw about 350,000 illegal downloads per episode.
This means that its half-decade reign remains unchallenged. Though, earlier this month, The Mail on Sunday shared a report by Muso, data analysts for the piracy market, which suggested that Amazon’s The Grand Tour has become the most illegally downloaded television show in history; somehow beating the likes of Game of Thrones, Westworld, and The Walking Dead.
Torrent Freak, also points out that this surge in illegal downloads of Game of Throne episodes were seen right after the season finale came online, this year in April. The HBO fantasy series’ sixth season this year addressed the fate of Jon Snow (Kit Harington) while setting up the remaining 13 episodes in thrilling fashion.
Other than Game of Thrones, in 2016 there was a new entrant in the list with the science-fiction western ‘Westworld’ gaining popularity. The new show quickly gained popularity in pirate circles and is in third spot already. Also, it was revealed that, like many previous years toom, people have continued to show an increased interest in high-quality video. “In recent years, many pirates have moved from 480p copies to 720p and 1080p videos, in part thanks to better broadband availability,” the report stated. ALSO READ: From Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime to Lenovo Vibe K5, here are the best selling smartphones on Flipkart in 2016
The torrent analyst compiled a list of the most torrented TV-shows worldwide (single episode) for 2016, together with the traditional ratings in the US. The ranking is compiled by TorrentFreak based on several sources, including statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers.