Game of Thrones, Dexter and The Big Bang Theory - all shown on M-Net in South Africa, top the list of the most illegally downloaded shows in 2012, followed by sitcom How I Met Your Mother seen on e.tv in the 4th place.
TorrentFreak released its annual list of most popular illegally pirated TV shows and in 2012 more than 80% of all TV content downloaded illegally, came from countries outside of America.
Viewers with internet access in countries around the world are taking to illegal downloads in an ever increasing number as their impatience grows and as they're unwilling to wait for TV shows and episodes to show up on their TV sets in countries where pay-TV is prohibitively expensive or distribution of specific shows are limited.
No African country made the list of top 10 countries where the biggest illegal downloads happens. According to TorrentFreak more than 90% of illegal downloading through the internet happens within the first seven days after a new episode of a TV show becomes available.
The top Game of Thrones episode was downloaded 4,28 million times in 2012, followed by the top episode of Dexter with 3,85 million illegal downloads and The Big Bang Theory with 3,2 million illegal downloads.
The top 10 is rounded out by How I Met Your Mother (2,96 million), Breaking Bad (2,58 million), The Walking Dead (seen in South Africa on TopTV's FX channel), Homeland, House, Fringe (all also seen on M-Net) and Revolution (seen in South Africa on the M-Net Series channel and the only brand-new TV show to crack the Top 10 list).
