Perhaps even more importantly, the rise of unauthorized downloading of TV-shows is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels. Availability seems to be the key issue why people turn to BitTorrent.

This also becomes clear when we look at the geographical location of the downloaders. The vast majority of the downloads come from overseas, over 90% on average. Outside the US, fans sometimes have to wait for weeks or even months before the show airs on TV in their country. Many of them are simply not that patient or willing to torture themselves, and turn to BitTorrent in desperation.

Legal online streaming services are only available in the US, and change very little in the overall download figures. Until the availability problem is addressed, we’re not likely to see a decrease in TV-show downloads from BitTorrent. Indeed, compared to last year, the download figures have grown a little, especially for the top three TV-shows in the list.

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows, together with the viewer average for TV in the US, based on data from Nielsen. Note that the download count for each show is per episode, the most downloaded in this case. The Olympics Opening Ceremony was one of the most wanted broadcasts of the year with 4,620,000 downloads, but we decided only to include TV-series.

The data for the top 10 is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all the large BitTorrent trackers. The download number is the sum of all torrent downloads for the most popular episode. Based on previous experience a correction is made for smaller .torrent releases that we might have missed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Only 10 days after the game’s launch date, already half a million people had downloaded the game. During the months after that, another million people obtained a copy of the game via BitTorrent. According to our estimates, Spore was downloaded 1.7 million times since early September, a record breaking figure for a game.

When we posted about the impressive download rate on Spore – inflated due to the DRM that was put into the game – EA doubted our statistics. EA’s Mariam Sughayer said that every BitTorrent download was not a successful copy, and that several downloads didn’t work, were buggy, or contained viruses. We wont deny that on badly moderated torrent sites, malicious torrents probably can be found. However, this constitutes less than 1% of the available torrents, and they are not added to our statistics.

Below is the list of the 10 most downloaded (PC) games on BitTorrent in 2008, with an estimated download count for each. In second place we see The Sims 2, also from the hands of Spore creator Will Wright. Assassins Creed completes the top 3 with just over a million downloads.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.