Top 10 Pirated TV Shows of 2010

TorrentFreak have released a list of the 10 most downloaded TV shows of 2010. You can read their list below:

1. Lost – 5.9m (downloads)
2. Heroes – 5.4m
3. Dexter – 3.8m
4. The Big Bang Theory – 3.2m
5. House – 2.6m
6. How I Met Your Mother – 2.4m
7. 24 – 2.2m
8. True Blood – 1.9m
9. Glee – 1.7m
10. Family Guy – 1.6m

I just can't imagine people being so desperate to watch House, The Big Bang Theory, Family Guy or How I Met Your Mother that they'd turn to bittorrent. But clearly millions of people do! From a UK perspective, Dexter and True Blood both take 6-12 months to reach these shores (annoyingly), so I'm not surprised they're popular online if other countries have similar waits.

As always, there's one surefire way non-US broadcasters can stop their native audiences downloading shows: shorten the gap after US transmissions. In the UK, Sky continue to be quite good and are even making a point of advertising US drama as arriving "days after the States" now, but let's see if they keep it up.

It'll be interesting to see how quickly Sky Atlantic shows Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire in 2011, as they're a brand new channel designed to entice fans of high-quality US drama. Their audience are likely to be sophisticated young adults who are fully capable of using bittorrent if they're expected to wait a month or more, so they'll need to ensure quick UK premieres.

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