TV

The HBO medieval drama series beats 'The Walking Dead' as the most pirated TV show in 2014 with 8.1 million illegal downloads.

• Dec 27, 2014

AceShowbiz - "Game of Thrones" still holds the throne when it comes to online piracy. The hit fantasy drama series has been named the most pirated TV show for the third consecutive year, according to TorrentFreak.

The HBO series leads way ahead of its competitors with an estimated 8.1 million illegal downloads in 2014, based on data compiled from several public BitTorrent trackers. This comes as no surprise since earlier this year the show set a new piracy record when more than 250,000 people were sharing one single torrent at the same time, a few hours after the first torrent of the season 4 finale was available.

The runner-up this year is "The Walking Dead", with 4.8 million downloads. The AMC zombie series, however, drew more TV audience than "Thrones" with an average of 17 million viewers ("Thrones" posted around 7 million viewers).

"The Big Bang Theory" places third with 3.9 million downloads, followed by another CBS sitcom, "How I Met Your Mother" which concluded this year, and "Gotham" with 3.5 million and 3.2 million respectively.

1. "Game of Thrones" - 8.1 million downloads
2. "The Walking Dead" - 4.8 million downloads
3. "The Big Bang Theory" - 3.9 million downloads
4. "How I Met Your Mother" - 3.5 million downloads
5. "Gotham" - 3.2 million downloads
6. "Arrow" - 2.9 million downloads
7. "Grey's Anatomy" - 2.8 million downloads
8. "Vikings" - 2.7 million downloads
9. "Suits" - 2.5 million downloads
10. "South Park" - 2.4 million downloads