Everyone expected the Game of Thrones season premiere ratings to be good — it’s Game of Thrones, after all — but I don’t think anyone could have guessed the numbers would be 800,000 higher than the second most-watched episode. Eight million fans tuned in to see “The Wars to Come,” a staggering sum when you consider a not-insignificant chunk of people had already watched the episode after it leaked. TorrentFreak has crunched the numbers, and holy moly, this show is riding as high as Drogon.
With the four leaked episodes and the “A Day in the Life” documentary included, [Tru Optik] found that there were 32 million downloads across 18 million IP-addresses during the first week. The first episode generated most interest and was downloaded over 13 million times, which is significantly more than last year. Interestingly, the data for the post broadcast torrent also shows that most downloaders grabbed high quality copies. (Via)
Thirteen million is a piracy record. The previous chart-topper was the fourth season finale, with a measly 7.5 million. To put that number into perspective, let’s say 13 million people paid $12 to see a movie. That film would earn $156,000,000 in its first weekend. More people downloaded the episode than live in Cuba. The last time 13 million people watched an episode of Modern Family was three years ago. Thirteen million is… you get the idea. Game of Thrones is very popular.
Via: TorrentFreak
