Heroes, The Show with the Most Illegal Number of Downloads in the World
Chalk it up as yet another nail in the coffin for linear, scheduled TV. A recent report by Big Champagne has show the true extent of torrent downloads, and the results aren’t pretty. Well, they’re not pretty if you’re a TV producer at any rate.
Despite the recent furore with the Pirate Bay, and the news that the UK aims to clamp down on online piracy, the numbers are somewhat staggering. Eric Garland - Big Champagne chief exec – says "millions of television viewers now access free, unauthorised versions of favourite shows at least some of the time. This is a socially acceptable form of casual piracy - and it is replacing viewing hours."
Read: Eating into TV profits.
Who’s the biggest victim of TV piracy then, we hear you scream? Well you’d best pay more attention to our headlines. Yep: bizarre, steadily-declining-in-quality US series Heroes comes out of the download pub looking least rosy. The show has been illegally downloaded massive 54 million times worldwide, meaning it beats Lost, 24 and House to be the show with the most morally ambiguous fans… which is pretty ironic. See below for the full list of TV piracy casualties in order of downloads. Almost makes you weep for those multi-million dollar networks, doesn’t it?
Thankfully, we Brits can rest easy knowing we only make up 4% of the piracy pie. The US accounts for 47%
1. Heroes; 54,562,012
2. Lost; 51,151,396
3. 24; 34,119,093
4. Prison Break; 29,283,591
5. House; 26,277,954
6. Fringe; 21,434,755
7. Desperate Housewives; 21,378,412
8. Grey's Anatomy; 19,916,775
9. Gossip Girl; 19,706,870
10. Smallville; 19,598,999
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