While I’m not one to condone piracy (I’ve come to know many content creators over the years and the fact of the matter is it’s how they make their living) I’m not here to judge or condone. What I am here for is to report that it would appear that our favorite types of shows are the ones hitting the top of the most downloaded lists this year.

So what are the top 10 most pirated shows of the year you ask?

  • ‘Game of Thrones‘ with 5.9 million illegal downloads of the show
  • ‘Breaking Bad’ with 4.2 million downloads
  • ‘The Walking Dead‘ with 3.6 million downloads
  • ‘The Big Bang Theory‘ with 3.4 million
  • The last season of ‘Dexter‘ with 3.1 million
  • ‘How I Met Your Mother’ with 3 million
  • ‘Suits’ with 2.6 million
  • ‘Homeland’ with 2.4 million
  • ‘Vikings’ with 2.3 million
  • ‘Arrow‘ with 2.2 million

Topping the list for the second year is ‘Game of Thrones’ who had 4.28 million downloads of last year’s season which mean they were up by 1.62 million downloads from last year. Interestingly enough, for all three of the shows in the top 10 ‘Game of Thrones’ is the only one whose illegal downloads were higher than it’s traditional viewership in the United States. I’m sure this has to do with ‘Game of Thrones’ being on HBO compared to the other being on networks that are more easily accessible. As you can see, though, even past the top three we see ‘Dexter’, ‘Vikings’, and ‘Arrow’ in the top 10. While not strictly science fiction I think many of us would also still easily count ‘The Big Bang Theory’ in on that list. Although it may be considered comedy, the humor for our fandoms should clearly count!

These estimated downloads are going to clearly by on the low side as they are generated by download statistics put together by a variety of public BitTorrent trackers and do not include private trackers, online streaming or cyberlocker downloads. Without access to all of the data, it’s impossible to know exactly how high the downloads and streaming actually is.

Do these shows seem like they belong on the top of the list to you?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter