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The top 10 most pirated shows of November 2015

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By Natan Edelsburg, SVP

December 8, 2015 | 5 min read

The waters became rougher for the top pirating sites in November 2015 as they were forced to opearte under many different URLs to avoid getting shut down. The Walking Dead continued to dominate followed by superhero shows. Here are the full charts and insights from SimilarWeb.

SimilarWeb Kick Ass

SimilarWeb Kick Ass

This month we once again gathered data on several torrenting sites and took the 10 most popular shows of each torrenting network. Due to the nature of torrenting sites, they often operate under many URLs so the sites we track may change from month to month. For Kat and The Pirate Bay we used the same sites as last month but for torrentz.eu we added torrentz.in to more accurately show torrenting trends.

Key findings:

  • Walking Dead is the big winner...again!
  • Torrent users love superhero shows and aren’t big fans of comedy.
  • November was yet another month wholly dominated by The Walking Dead and, in all the torrenting sites we track, they are the undisputed champions. This season consists of 16 episodes but they are broken into 8 episode parts and the first half finished up on November 28th. The second half of season 6 resumes February 14th so it will be interesting to see if The Walking Dead can hold the top spot for December and January.
  • One striking difference between The Pirate Bay and the other torrenting sites is the appearance of South Park, which holds the number 2 spot on Pirate Bay with 6% of the traffic share, but doesn’t appear on the other top 10 lists. It seems pirates just love South Park!
  • Kat and and the Torrentz list are almost identical except Torrentz has Big Bang Theory on the list and Kat has Limitless, but otherwise the top 10 shows (not rank) are the same.
  • What ever happened to The Big Bang Theory? Last month, the show ranked 5th on the pirate bay, 3rd on torrentz, and 6th on Kat, but in November it only appears on the Torrentz list. The show might receive a boost in December, as it was recently announced that TV’s most awkward couple, Sheldon and Amy, will finally have sex in the December 17th episode. Can a geeky sex scene get torrent users to begin watching the show again?
  • Once again, The Flash performed extremely well, and in November ranked in the top 5 of all 3 torrenting lists. The CW network hit is showing no signs of slowing down and is very popular among torrent users.
  • In fact, torrent users absolutely love superhero shows and 5 such shows make an appearance on the torrent lists: The Flash, Arrow, Jessica Jones, Supergirl, and Gotham. These shows account for 14 out of the 30 top shows across all the torrenting sites we track
  • The show that is most noticeably absent from all torrenting top 10s is Modern Family, the uber-popular ABC sitcom. As network shows go, Modern Family is one of the best, but it is not nearly as popular with the online torrenting community.
  • After a slow October, Fargo is finally starting to gain a sizeable online audience. The show is picking up steam and managed to crack the top 10 of all our torrenting lists. However, Fargo is only a 10 episode show and after 2 new episodes air in December, that’ll be it for the grisly Coen brothers show.
  • Last month, Homeland performed well among Kat and Torrentz users but was strangely shut out of the top 10 Pirate Bay list. This month, though, Pirate Bay users have been downloading the show in droves. It accounts for 5% of the traffic share for Pirate Bay and is nicely positioned in third. On the other torrenting sites Homeland received a larger share of the traffic but fell lower down the rankings.
  • Some shows that were notably absent from all 3 torrenting lists are American Horror Story, How to Get Away with Murder, and Blindspot. All 3 are extremely popular crime shows that fail to capture mass numbers of torrent users.

SimilarWeb is the leading competitive market intelligence firm providing data analytics on desktop websites, mobile web and mobile apps. The SimilarWeb platform provides PPC, SEO, Media Buyers and Affiliates an edge over the competition with actionable insights into their competitor’s marketing tactics. Discover the data for yourself at SimilarWeb.com, with free insights for any website or mobile app.

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