Game of Thrones finale most downloaded torrent, HBO thrilled

MANILA, Philippines – The Game of Thrones Season 4 finale was record breaking.

The LA Times reports 7.1 million viewers tuned in to watch “The Children” of Westeros end their season, a 32% climb from last season’s finale.

Earlier this month, HBO announced Game of Thrones was its most popular series in its history, surpassing even the multi-Emmy Awarded “The Sopranos.” This season, the show average 18.4 million viewers per episode up from 14.4 million last season.

That does not take into account episodes that are acquired through other means.

According to TorrentFreak, the show broke piracy records with 254,114 people sharing a single torrent file a few hours after it first appeared. In 12 hours, the show was downloaded 1.5 million times and is expected to balloon up to 7.5 million in the coming weeks.

With piracy being tackled seriously around the world, it’s surprising that HBO doesn’t really mind the torrenting GoT gets.

HBO Programming President Michael Lombardo told Entertainment Weekly, “it is a compliment of sorts” adding that “it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales.” His only concern is that the illegal copies may be of poor quality which doesn’t give justice to the production values of the show.

Time Warner Inc – the owner of HBO – is also laid back about the issue. CEO Jeff Bewkes says the piracy is not really hurting them but instead, giving them more subscribers through word of mouth and made them rely less on paid advertising for its shows, letting “the programming and the views talk for us [and] it seems to be working.”

Game of Thrones is an American television series based on George R.R. Martin’s series of novels titled “A Song of Ice and Fire.” The show was renewed for two more seasons earlier this year, two days after its fourth season premiered. – Rappler.com