With the start of 2024 also comes the start of a new year for streaming services. We have seen most of the major premium services raise prices during 2023, while at the same time offering lower-priced monthly plans in exchange for viewing commercials. Amazon Prime Video recently announced it will add commercials starting January 29. You can get rid of those ads if you want to pay an extra $2.99 a month.
For a while, pirating TV shows on the internet went down as people signed up for cheap streaming services. Now that the prices for these premium services have all gone up, there"s also been an increase in downloaded pirated versions of shows via torrent sites.
As it does every year, Torrent Freak has posted its list of what it claims are the 10 most downloaded pirated TV shows from 2023 via BitTorrent traffic. The list was created by using "sample data from several sources". With one big exception, the top 10 list consists of shows that debuted on streaming services.
Here"s the top 10 list of pirated shows, again according to Torrent Freak"s sources.
- The Last of Us - HBO/Max
- The Mandalorian - Disney+
- Loki - Disney+
- Ahsoka - Disney+
- Secret Invasion - Disney+
- Silo - Apple TV+
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - Apple TV+
- Tulsa King - Paramount+
- Gen V - Amazon Prime Video
- Ted Lasso - Apple TV +
The big exception is the number 1 show on the pirated list. The Last of Us, based on the video game series, debuts on HBO, a more traditional pay cable network, just before episodes of the show are placed on the Max service for streaming customers.
The other shows in the top 5 part of the list are all from Disney+. which has raised its rates considerably this year for people who don"t want to pay for the ad-based plan. Even a show like Secret Invasion, a Marvel Cinematic Universe series that got universally panned by both critics and fans, managed to get in the top five position.
From 6 to 10, three of the shows on the come from Apple TV+, which also raised its rates earlier this year from $6.99 to $9.99 a month. The other two shows on the list are Gen V, the spinoff of the adult superhero show The Boys on Amazon Prime Video, and, in an unexpected listing, Tulsa King, the crime drama starring Sylvester Stallone, which is available on Paramount+.