An Anzac day Public holiday has proven to be beneficial for the season return of Game of Thrones. The epic series pulled a whopping 396,000 viewers for its 10.30am premiere. Another 285,000 watched a primetime screening later in the evening. Adding up all the playouts (including +2 channel) it amassed 727,000 viewers, the biggest series premiere in Pay TV history. Showcase also enjoyed its second largest overnight share ever with 3.6%.
The Season 6 opener managed to outrank the traditional Collingwood v Essendon ANZAC Day match at 321,000.
TorrentFreak reports after many people failed to find a GoT copy of a rumoured leak, the first pirated copies of the episode appeared online shortly after the official broadcast. A few hours later, hundreds of thousands of people already grabbed a copy. Data gathered by TorrentFreak estimates that after half a day, over a million people have downloaded the episode via BitTorrent. By Tuesday morning (26/4/16) more than 200,000 people were actively sharing one of the three most-popular torrents.
Despite the Foxtel ‘simulcast’ with the US, Australia topped the piracy (12.5%) followed by India (9.7%), United States (8.5%) and the United Kingdom (6.9%). TorrentFreak notes its numbers are also timezone-affected. No doubt the public holiday also drew out the pirates.
I'd be looking over my shoulder if I was illegally downloading. Mate of mine recieved a warning of his downloading habits a few years ago and he was genuinely packing it. We've heard it all before but I reckon there's a big crackdown on piracy happening next year. Little birdy told me. ------ Greg