by Thinus Ferreira
A journey through a zombie wasteland, a bounty hunter in a galaxy far, far away and an antihero in time-travel adventures top 2023's list of most-pirated TV shows.
TorrentFreak has released its annual list of most popular TV shows illegally watched last year and video-on-demand (VOD) shows on video streaming services once again dominated the top 10 list.
Netflix has, however, interestingly, failed to make the list in 2023, while it still had Stranger Things in 8th place in the year before in 2022.
The first season of HBO's zombie-wasteland drama series The Last of Us which was on M-Net (DStv 101) tops the list as the most-torrented TV show in 2023, followed by Star Wars' The Mandalorian on Disney+ in 2nd place, and Loki - also on Disney+ - in the 3rd position.
Two more Disney+ series - Star Wars: Ahsoka and Secret Invasion - respectively took the 4th and 5th places. The science fiction drama series Silo and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - both on Apple TV+ - snagged the 6th and 7th positions.
Tulsa King - the crime drama series with Sylvester Stallone which is a Paramount+ show but was on M-Net and MultiChoice's Showmax streamer in South Africa - took the 8th spot on 2023's TorrentFreak list, with Amazon Prime Video's drama series Gen V and Ted Lasso in the 9th and 10th positions.
"With the current streaming landscape being so fragmented, it appears that many people prefer to pirate instead of paying for another subscription," says Ernesto Van der Sar of TorrentFreak.
"Interestingly, Netflix releases are noticeably absent. Without speculating too much, it seems likely that Netflix users are less likely to give up their subscriptions, as it’s the dominant streaming platform in most parts of the world."
Here's TorrentFreak's compiled list of 2022's Top 10 most-pirated shows:
1. The Last of Us, HBO (M-Net)
2. The Mandalorian, Disney+
3. Loki, Disney+
4. Ahsoka, Disney+
5. Secret Invasion, Disney+
6. Silo, Apple TV+
7. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Apple TV+
8. Tulsa King, Paramount+ (M-Net/Showmax)
9. Gen V, Amazon Prime Video
10. Ted Lasso, Apple TV+
