All men must watch “Game of Thrones,” in any way that they can.
The finale of the HBO fantasy series drew in an impressive 7.1 million viewers on Sunday night, and while that number didn’t break the record the show set earlier this year, it did boast a 32 percent gain from last year’s season finale. But the number that’s getting the most buzz comes courtesy of a few million pirates.
TorrentFreak — the apparent authority illegal Internet downloading — released data this week confirming what we all know to be true: when it comes to online piracy, “GoT” reigns supreme. The show’s concluding episode for Season 4 was the most-pirated hour of TV with around 1.5 million downloads within 12 hours of the finale’s airing. Over 250,000 people managed to share the same torrent file, breaking the show’s own record which it set back in May.
While it certainly isn’t a milestone “GoT” is happy to reach, HBO doesn’t seem too upset with the online theft of one of its most popular shows. The head honcho of programming for the network told Entertainment Weekly last year that piracy was a “compliment of sorts” and “certainly didn’t negatively impact DVD sales.”
With an average viewership of 18.6 million, “GoT” attracted its largest audience ever this past season, so what’s there to worry about?
