Winter has arrived and the freeloaders are out in full force.
The premiere of the seventh season of “Game of Thrones” was released Sunday and it again reclaims its title of the most-shared show on BitTorrent for the fifth year in a row. Per TorrentFreak, more than 130,000 users were sharing a popular rip at the same time on Monday. As with every season, the total amount of users who eventually download each episode of the fantasy series is expected to number in the millions.
According to network HBO, a record 16.1 million viewers watched the season premiere within 24 hours of its release— up 50 percent from the previous season. But it also faces a problem given the increasing popularity of illegal streaming. The BitTorrent trade publication reports that one unauthorized streaming website was seeing 20,000 people an hour illegally playing the latest episode of “GoT.” Meanwhile a recent survey by finder.com found that 5.36 percent of Americans admitted to illegally streaming or downloading the television adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s series. That may translate to around 10 million Americans.
HBO is a cash cow for parent Time Warner, reporting $583 million in operating income in the first quarter of this year. But even so, the unwillingness of a significant part of the population to pay $14.99 a month for a HBO Go subscription is a teething problem. One popular estimate suggests that the network may lose as much as $45 million each season to “Game of Thrones” piracy. “Westworld,” another popular HBO program, is also a favorite among pirates.
Here are the 10 most downloaded TV shows on BitTorrent as of last year:
- “Game of Thrones” (HBO)
- “The Walking Dead” (AMC)
- “Westworld” (HBO)
- “The Flash” (CW)
- “Arrow” (CW)
- “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS)
- “Vikings” (History)
- “Lucifer” (Fox)
- “Suits” (USA)
- “The Grand Tour” (Amazon Video)