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Prison Break Downloads Popular on BitTorrent

Less than a day after the first two episodes of Prison Break’s fourth season aired on TV, close to a million people have already downloaded the episodes on BitTorrent. This is an impressive number and in the days to come it might even come close to the 6.5 million TV viewers on FOX.

prison breakIncreasingly people are using BitTorrent to download their favorite TV-shows. The rise of unauthorized downloading of TV-shows is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels. It’s more about availability than the fact that it’s free and should be viewed as an opportunity, not a threat.

The millions of online viewers are catching up with the TV viewers, and are now a significant part of the show’s overall fanbase. Jesse Alexander, the executive producer of the popular TV-shows “Heroes” and “Lost” told TorrentFreak in an interview that his shows actually benefited from BitTorrent, because fans don’t have to miss a show, and often inspire others to watch.

“People watching shows such as Lost and Heroes on BitTorrent is the present world reality,” Alexander told us. “TV networks have to recognize this, give their viewers more ways to interact with the shows, and find ways to generate revenue from every member of the global audience.”

This week the new TV-season has started, but our weekly TV-Show download chart is the last one of the summer season. Prison Break will appear in next week’s chart, probably on top. Last year, Prison Break was the fifth most popular TV-show on BitTorrent, after Heroes, Top Gear, Battlestar Galactica and Lost.

The data for the weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

Top Downloads August 24 – August 31

Ranking (last week) TV-show
1 (2) Weeds
2 (5) Generation Kill
3 (4) Eureka
4 (new) Mythbusters
5 (new) Olympics 2008 Closing Ceremony
6 (new) The Daily Show
7 (new) Greek
8 (10) Project Runway
9 (9) Mad Men
10 (new) The Colbert Report

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  • HEHFACE

    The top DLed shows are gonna look very different in next few months xD

  • Mr.Afghanistan

    Lots of junk TV releases now a days, like Beijing Olympic 2008 LoL.

    I’m glad Prison Break is back.

  • HEY!

    OMG STOP DOWNLOADING SHOWS AND NOT DOING WHAT WE SAY! YOU WILL WATCH THEM EXACTLY WHEN WE WANT YOU TO!

    NOT TO MENTION YOU DONT WATCH OUR HORRIBLE COMMERCIALS THAT YOU DIDNT CONSENT TO IN THE FIRST PLACE!

    SO WHAT IF YOU ALREADY ‘PAY’ FOR THE SERVICE OUT THE ASSHOLE YOU WILL WATCH OUR ADVERTS AND BUY LIKE MINDLESS CONSUMERS!

    BWAHAHA ALL YOU PEOPLE ARE IS A FARM OF MONEY! WE TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT TO LIKE AND WHAT NOT TO LIKE! WE WILL BE AROUND SHORTLY TO TAKE YOUR WALLET AND BRAIN WASH YOU MORE. GOOD DAY.

    P.S (cApS aRe FuN.. and stop downloading and trying to act like your actually free.. ahaha.. peasants.)

  • Anonymous

    I found out it was on the week before and on that day, but I forgot about it when it actually came on. I only remembered about it after the first episode had finished and the second one was half done so I went and downloaded them.

  • Anon

    The sceners fuxored the rips this time too. It took two propers after the initial release to get it totally right.

  • mr lim

    WTF LOL!

    Why did you guys use that image?

    That’s not even from Prison Break 4. The guy in the background is this guy who broke out of prison literally and was parodied on the Prison Break posters.

    Unless it was intentional? :D

  • Anonymous

    PIRATES

    SHOULD

    BE

    EXECUTED

  • Anonymous

    “The sceners fuxored the rips this time too. It took two propers after the initial release to get it totally right.”

    Yep. They’re too busy trying to do everything fast and be “1337″, they don’t bother with doing things right. Well, some of them.

  • s2pid

    @8

    Why thank you?
    Do you mean as in Executable Binaries.
    if otherwise.
    Go Fuck Those Anti-P2P Feigns

  • Meocross

    Lawl the Tv companys are still denying the fact that they are not in charge anymore give it afew more years they will go bankrupt before they start adapting to the new ways of the digi-era

  • Anonymous

    sorry i refuse to pay 60 bucks for one season of a show like family guy or 24 or trailer park boys especially since it probably cost you less then a dollar to manufacture the disk… frigin bilkers.

    pirates should be executed? good luck with that….

  • Bananmous

    what’s the deal with people bashing eachother under a “comments” section for a tv-show? don’t get it.

    give PEAS a chance, fellas!!!

  • MeepMeep

    @Bananmous

    Its even more hilarious those peeps keep on posting here. They probably suffer from brain damage or just do not have a life.

  • jon

    mas selamat! wrong picture lol

  • Anonymous

    @5

    hahaha, you f-u-c-KKing NOOOOOOOB

    plz, kill urself.

  • Zwartbaard

    @7: How pathetic…!

    So, people you meet, who do not meet your image of “normal” people should be hanged/shot/otherwise killed? Dude, that’s sick!

    There are SO many people, and with those people SO many personalitys! Just leave the ones you can’t deal with, or the ones you are to retarded to deal with, be.

    We wouldn’t be alive anymore when we all would be like you. Or we would all have the syndrome of down due to incest…

  • Torrent Alem

    Thankyou for shared..

    http://www.torrentalem.com turkish torrent information community

  • Peerana

    As of 2008-09-03 09:08:02 UTC:

    Downloaded: 1,173,667
    Incomplete: 162,728

    Prison Break season 4 episodes 1 & 2.

  • John Lennon fan reply to HEY!

    Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
    And you think you’re so clever and class less and free
    But you’re still FUCKING peasants as far as I can see…

  • hmmm ?

    Do you really have to watch that holywood crap ?

  • bob

    The rise of unauthorized downloading of TV-shows is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels.

    hulu.com has both episodes free, decent quality, and its up the next day. with minimal ads..

  • HEY!

    Heh I like that rhyme..

    you also might like this..

    USA – Land of the free (If you do what we say).

  • -=Anon=-

    Where is Trailer Park Boys on that list? :(

  • Anonymous

    Pirates are common entitlement whore thieves with delusions of grandeur.

  • uha1.com

    above poster is a greedy bastard liking to rob little children of there cash with 18$ pop and popcorn at movie theatres

    were taking back mother earth ONE bit and ONE byte at a time.

    CANADA 1st , YOUR NEXT.

    and last i checked most of the actors and actresses are more akin to whores as its taking off ones clothes and getting paid for it sound about right?

    and chicken anonymous how are you.
    bok bok boook bok

  • Anonymous

    “taking back mother earth one bit and byte at a time”? what are you? some kind of socialist pagan? some kind of dirt worshiping technophile?

    no. your kingdom is more than likely your parent’s basement. you probably have a bad case of carpal tunnel stemming from an incurable addiction to cartoon porn in lieu of any real flesh-and-blood prospects. Your classmates only notice you’re alive when you’re being particularly awkward or inept, perhaps fumbling about with your over stuffed backpack bedecked in death metal pins and patches while you creep to your next class, gaze forever cast to the floor in an attempt to avoid even the slightest, most minuscule chance of eye contact with another living human being. your complexion could likely be described as “vampire” were it not for the red swathe of pus filled pustules and acne scars covering your never-been-kissed face. too bad you can’t just download clearasil huh? too bad you can’t just download real friends or a girlfriend.

    or a life.

  • Mas Selamat

    Mas Selamat bin Kastari, Singapore’s most wanted. What’s it doing on a site so far. However it makes a good joke. Look him up on Interpol.

  • Anonymous

    No need for bittorent with pbreak.

    http://www.hulu.com/prison-break

  • Or..

    Well Anonymous, I am not the same person you were speaking to, but I have a response just the same.

    You see you have proven your lack of intelligence with that paragraph, if you knew anything about the world or the people in it, you would know that not everyone on the internet is some kind of nerd with skin problems. Although his comment was a bit strange, he does not mean he is a freak. On the other hand, your just a douche nozzle. Learn something about the world you live in, this shit isnt cut and dry like the companies have brain washed you to believe.

    You fit perfectly in the movie ‘Idiocracy’, I would suggest watching it as thats exactly where your ‘future’ is going.

  • nyrB

    sorry, but hulu only works if you’re in the united states. i would *love* to be able to use the service, but it ain’t an option.

  • Bob

    What I need is the following.

    -Give me the show in format that I can watch on my laptop or on my TV.

    -Available globally, Hulu is a good start. But only in the US, WTF.

    -I will watch ads, just make them 15 secs max and only at the beginning of the show.

    -I would love to support the shows I like, give us the possibility to donate money anonymously.

  • Dan

    Only reason why I download great TV-series like Prison Break and Heroes, is because I am from Norway, and here the episodes airs like a month after the US. And that sucks.

  • fuzzypig

    Where are these downloads going to? I bet most are outside the US, sorry US stations, but the rest of the world wants to see the shows at the same time as our US cousins.

    Here in the UK, my missus will not wait 9 months for the stateside shows to come on DVD, she wants them now so she can chat on the forums with her online mates. Give her credit, she almost always buys them when they do finally come out in the UK on DVD, but she ain’t waiting 9 months to talk about a show that was on last night!

    TV COMPANIES WAKE UP! THIS IS THE AGE OF THE INTERNET, GLOBAL COMMUNITIES WHO WANT TO SHARE AND CHAT NOW, NOT 18 MONTHS APART!!!!

  • dPsychc

    its practically true in Indian they are airing Season 2, i mean thats so fucking late…
    and also the DVDs need to be a bit cheaper asia i mean you need keep the ratio of inflation and per capita income in mind too before setting a up a cost for DVD

  • BLZeeboob

    Thanks for letting me know series 4 had started, got both episodes now..

  • Anonymous

    An episode takes one hour on TV including commercials.
    A downloaded version takes 40 minutes without commercials, as they are removed.
    And you can watch the episode as it is not yet available in your country.
    They should sent it out world-wide on the same day and with much less commercials.
    But then I would still record it and watch it when it’s finished as I hate the commercials in between.
    Or still download the episode as the commercials are already removed so I do not need to “fast forward” every 5 minutes.

    So in my opinion it is hard to solve

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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