50% Of All BitTorrent Downloads are TV-Shows
Reports show that 50% of all people using BitTorrent at any given point in time do so to download TV-series, quite an impressive number. In total, over a billion TV-shows are downloaded every year, and this number continues to rise.
It is safe to say that BitTorrent is slowly replacing Tivo. Some episodes of popular TV-shows such as “Lost”, “Prison Break” and “Heroes” get up to 10 million downloads per episode, spread over hundreds of sites. This number is getting awfully close to the average number of viewers on TV in the US. However, the major difference is that the BitTorrent “viewers” come from all over the world.
In January TorrentFreak published the list of “most downloaded TV-shows“, where we showed that the most popular episode of “Heroes” was downloaded 2.5 million times on Mininova alone. Even more impressive -across all BitTorrent sites- more than a billion episodes are downloaded every year worldwide.
The graph below shows the percentage of .torrent files per category downloaded on Mininova over the last 2 years - over 40 percent are TV-shows. To support this, we analyzed a sample of 400,000 torrents earlier this year. That data indicated that approximately half of all the people using BitTorrent at any given point in time, were using it to download a TV-show.
The popularity of TV-torrents hasn’t gone unnoticed. In fact, there are reports of TV-studios that allegedly use BitTorrent as a marketing tool, by leaking unaired pilots intentionally. While the movie and music studios continue to fight their “war on piracy”, most of the TV-studios lay low.
On the contrary, Anne Sweeney -the president of the Disney-ABC television group- admitted that she was “inspired” after seeing a pirated copy of the hit-show “Desperate Housewives”. The pirated copy of this popular TV show was the main reason (besides the money) for Disney to sell their shows online. “Coming ‘face to face’ with the high-quality, commercial-free pirated version (of Desperate Housewives) told Disney that it was not just competing with other broadcasters, but with digital pirates and as such was an experience that prompted us to do the iTunes deal with Apple.” Sweeney said at the time.
BitTorrent’s popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed by actors either. Masi Oka who plays Hiro Nakamura in the popular show “Heroes”, made some pro-BitTorrent comments earlier this year. When he was in France to promote the series (before they aired), he was surprised to see how many people had already seen the show thanks to BitTorrent. Oka said that BitTorrent is a great promotion tool, but added “Hopefully, if they can buy the DVD after they watch it on BitTorrent, that would be great.”
One of the members of EZTV, the leading TV-torrent distribution group, told TorrentFreak in an earlier interview that he doesn’t think their work has a negative impact on the TV-industry either. “The only possible impacts can see are positive ones,” Boggibill said “it is free publicity, which may lead to higher ratings when people “discover” new shows and also larger numbers of DVD purchases - it is my understanding that many of the people that download TV shows from us are avid TV fans and will usually buy DVD boxsets of shows they like.”
A factor that plays a role in the rise of unauthorized downloading of TV-shows is that most people simply don’t see it as stealing. It is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels and it’s more about availability than the fact that it’s free. It’s not a threat, but more an opportunity. Seems as if the majority of our visitors come here for the movies. Since %50 of torrents are tv shows, what do our readers suggest to attract this segment who could find our site useful ?
source, author: Ernesto
yeah all mine series
like prison break, lost, heroes
JUMPER—JUMPER—JUMPER
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BIG GREETS TO [HBO]CREW,STUFFIES,DIAMOND
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camera angle is not too good for 12 mins but watchable,after that all is fine,had issues with people sat next to me,so had to be careful,please dont moan about my cams,specially if you havent got the balls to go do one yourself!!!!
http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=9b6f3be
Hiro Nakamura FTW
when is lost thread going to be made?
lost’s 3rd ep is out btw…
Uhmm, I don’t know, but… do you mind if you guys update the tv shows section?
Nip Tuck, Lost… Lost 720p
Find TV shows here:
http://www.tvfreeload.com/
i’m here mostly for the movies, and what tv shows that i do get. i try to get them from dvdrips also, unless i can’t wait which i’m doing with stargate atlantis.
if porno were count in the chart, it’d be 80%
The reason why so many tv shows are downloaded are because of release dates around the world. Eg in New Zealand we are only up to the 3rd episode of house where-as when i download it im up to ep 12 or 13.
thesprawl.se excellent free site for tvshows
hiro has a point, ive downloaded all the episodes of the wire (best show ever) and then after watching them i went and bought the dvd box sets.
Their are a lot of torrent tv shows on private trackers as well as newtorrents info of course.I like the uk shows and the bbc so i joined a lot of uk torrent sites.
Hey- whats with this????
Vista.Ultimate.x64.INtegrated.Feb.2008 ????
looks legit
://www.xrel.to/rss/release/Microsoft.Windows.Vista.Ultimate.x64.Integrated.February.2008.OEM.DVD9-BIE.html
This site is good for finding out when movies come out, but for regular TV shows, this site sucks.
Only a handful of TV shows are released on here, and usually I will find them quicker on EZTV than I do here, all at a single glance, rather than scrolling through a few pages of posts. Then some shows don’t even have a torrent link with them. It’s good for finding out about different TV shows and special though.
I would suggest having a dropdown list of TV shows over the last 7 days that you can then click on and find out more - so you can see everything at a glance and pick and choose form that, rather than clicking page by page with 5 posts at a time.
If more effort was put into posting TV series here, maybe you’d see the demographic/excitement shift. For movies I’m generally not “all over” knowing a film’s gotten a release. But we know when TV episodes air, and usually, by the time you get them up, we can find them via other outlets.
How about adding a whats on telly tonight (could also work for upcoming movie releases) section somewhere on your site. Maybe the sidebar. For reference I meen something like whats on eztv frontpage or if you want the best then look at http://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/
A good question for a poll Would you download LEGAL torrents (tv shows) if they contained commercials/advertising???
this makes sense.
MP3’s are popular but tiny in size
Decent games… there are about 2-4/year
Movies… not sure. I can only have time and will to watch 1/week.
I figure also that once you watch a few eps of a show and like it, you are likely to watch every ep and every season.
Rlslog could have a “staff picks” section where the TV shows for each night are displayed, and your review on the episode; whether it’s worth watching or nukes, etc. And a review of last weeks episode where people can comment about it and say what they think is going to happen next. Everyone loves to discuss their favorite tv show; more people will be attracted here to talk about it. Maybe talk about the newest TV shows and what we should check out?
Rlslog could take a poll to find out what shows visitors like most, and do posts on those shows.
i don’t even have tv because of the internet. i get to watch all my shows commercial free, see stuff i normally wouldn’t see, like BBC shows and can watch a couple episodes of shows that look interesting before commiting myself to buying the dvd, which i mostly do if the show is worth it. BSG! I think its a really convenient way to get shows, and i don’t have to waste time channel surfing thru crap. and rlslog is great for movies and such but thesprawl.se can’t be beat for tv shows
as for the board thing, no i don’t see it as a benefit. douche bags already run amock on here as it is. pretty sure the name of the site implies ‘releases’ only, not ‘chat about your favorite show’. and the message boards such as here ARE for things like nukes and such. i think its fine as it is
yes i agree that eztv (thesprawl.se), eztv.it is really good for just listing of TV shows and torrents. but when it comes to plot outlines, nfos, snaps and nuke information that’s where the flushing sound eminates. they are just a list of tv torrents with a forum and irc to discuss them.
oh yeah, and they are also great at uploading and seeding the tv torrents
Downloading TV-Shows is very important for me. 2 Years ago I’ve found this group EZTV on the net and I was astonished what kind of shows they have in America and the UK.
After downloading shows like “Prison Break” and “Heroes” I realized this is the way you like it. I turned off the stupid german television and started watching real comfortable TV like it should be. Whatever I want to the time I want.
Also I hate the silly dubbed german versions on television and I don’t know why the german channels can’t open up a second soundchannel for the original languages.
Now I know why I was learning English and I still do, with the help of EZTV and all the release-groups who give me the access to original movies.
Thank for that
Grenzi
Good! Top Gear beats Lost! And it’s twice the size!
I have got to say, Grenzi, your English is very good!
I agree, why would people watch shows on TV? There’s adverts, unless you have a Sky+ box or something similar, you can’t pause it and you can get 720p versions without having to pay for HDTV! It’s just ace!
I don’t understand why EZTV.it is able to post the torrent links on their site directly with each release, but the same can not happen on rlslog.
Does anyone know why finding TV shows is so much easier on EZTV.it than it is on here?
Maybe because eztv.it is a tracker and rlslog is a release log?
@Kim
But rlslog has its own tracker, newtorrents.info, right?
top gear and lost are two diff show, but both are top viewing. also battlestar galactica, best all round scifi show. not like that nonsense stargate atlantis.
back on topic, eztv is a reliable site, offering shows from canada and the uk, and sceners are starting to get more documentary from discovery and the history channel.
good stuff!!!
This is dividing up the 5% of downloads that isn’t porn.
@Kim
Sure, sometimes I can not understand everything that happens in each episode, but I am happy to try and help you.
Uhhhhh VISTA OEM INTEGRATED 2008 FEB…..??? Anyone know where to get it? I just saw the release, no links.
It has it’s own tracker, yes, I don’t know who it is.
Who would go and buy a dvd boxset after downloading a tv series? Your already have it in higher than dvd quality without any piracy warnings, irritating menus or studio movie logos. Plus you can fit 6 high def episodes ona single layer dvd when a commercial dvd would be lucky to get 2 standard def ones on there. DVD sucks. If they want our money then set up a simple donation scheme that cuts out the middleman.
I agree with 15. And no offence, for rlslog to be useful to tv-shows viewers, you guys should revise your whole way of approaching the matter.
Right now, you report games/movies/tv-shows/music or whatever, in the same way. Maybe you should use a different method for each.
Rlslog doesn’t “have” newtorrents.info, they just link to it because it’s a pooblick tracker and there aren’t malicious releases uploaded there like on the bay or mininova.
@Kim
Don’t speak unless you know what you are talking about:
http://www.rlslog.net/faq/#Q12
I think it’s kind of weird that anime is an own category. Either it’s an anime series, then it’s an tv dl, or an full-length movie, then it’s an ovie dl.
To RIAA & MPAA:
Who cares about your music and movies!
Many thanks Kim!
The reason of my English is only that I have to travel a lot between Cologne/Germany and London/UK and a lot of my friends even at home are foreigners and it helps a lot to speak english.
Anyway, since I started using the web in 1990 with my first PC and English became very important for me. At least I just wanted to understand what people talk in the first chatrooms
Even in that time everything was on the move. I grew up in the eastern part of Berlin where the wall came down and you saw there’s a whole new world behind it. A lot of people from all around the globe came to Berlin and started talking with you in every situation, even if you only want to cross the street. All this reporters from countries I thought they were evil(they teached us in school)… and now what do you think which language they used to communicate…
right…ENGLISH.
And that’s why I feel very flattered when somebody says my English is good
Yours sincerely
Grenzi
@nohead
I care, because I enjoy listening to their music and watching their movies.
I never watch TV anymore. I download everything from the net. That way I can watch it whenever I feel like, I can watch shows not available in my country and I can watch most of them in 720p. None of that is possible through my available TV networks. When will they understand that streaming a fixed table belongs to the past?
Why not try a section where users can post links to the torrents that that user downloads to watch on a regular basis.
Or if you know that user always downloads that series, I mean setting by the computer waiting for the episode to be uploaded on the day it’s going to be out, that kind of downloader…
Put him/her as dedicated poster for the program.
You know they’re gonna get it no matter what.
And also make them write a description of the episode.
(forgot that part)
If someone has not noticed yet,
Stargate Atlantis S04E17 is out.
@40 Ivory
Don’t be an @$$ hole
@slamothecow
Your mother is a whore.
How about a post each night for “TV Shows On Tonight” where you can put the releases of the major shows that are out that night. That way there are not like 20 posts for TV shows each night and everything is easily consolidated into one post where people who want it can look and people who get their TV elsewhere can easily scroll past.
#37, I agree. It makes me laugh when the studios try to tell themselves that torrents are a good thing. I love this Bob Knight’s quote “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” I see some executives and actors are taking that advice.
I don’t even copy movies from the library DVDs I get anymore. When I can put 3 to 6 ripped movies into a DVD instead of 1, why bother? I know the quality may not be as good but then, I don’t have 1080p to tell the difference anyway.
i always get the box sets from shops if i like the show , i even watch them again when they start over here !
People around my company and friends often asking me if a show is worth watching and are forever stopping me to have a chuckle about a show i have recommended (and seen months before airing in Oz).
Worldwide total of people actually IT savvy enough to download video is probably pretty small so I definitely think they get their advertising dollars out of us.
As I am from Australia I don’t have patience to wait for shows that are often canceled before they even make it here. I also can’t put up with all those advertisers that think its okay to jack the volume up 20% when it switches between the TV show and the advert.
I download tv shows all the time, ever since lost started, i wondered when it started in USA checked and watched entire series before we even got to ep 4 in UK. I even download the odd bit of deleted or impossible to get music, but i own over 3000 legal CDs and over 800 DVDs / Boxsets, and i think all this UK 3 strikes crap will ruin torrents for the UK, as they will warn even if you are streaming (youtube / stage6 etc) more than quarter/half a gig a day… (see orig article, its more about uk bandwidth loss than MPAA recooping money for artists)
But im still gonna download the latest TV shows from USA, they aint gonna stop me and im willing to go to court for my ‘convictions’ (excuse the pun)If milions can TiVo without acting illegaly, then i can DL
to Governments!!!
Good post, very informative… I donwload TV shows all the time, even TV shows that are aired in my country, i wont watch it on normal TV and will wait a few hours for it to be posted on the net, and then download it… for 2 reasons!
1) there are NO adverts!!!!
2) its in better quailty, in HD… you cant really get HD in the UK unless you subscribe to a very expensive package…
but mainly because of the adverts! i hate adverts in the middle of a good episode, very annoying
in response to “what do our readers suggest to attract this segment who could find our site useful ?”
I would like to see more posts about TV series, you do alot of posts and sometimes i see something has come out that i didnt know about.. but a few more would be nice
“Seems as if the majority of our visitors come here for the movies. Since %50 of torrents are tv shows, what do our readers suggest to attract this segment who could find our site useful?”
The answer is simple, be more like EZTV. This means a better lay-out, no irritating ads, no witless banter and a broader selection of TV-shows.
I never liked Mr X his comments, and never will. They are never constructive and thus pretty useless. Also, I hate having to browse through tons of these posts to get the one I want. Then there is the selection. Who needs all “Kitchen Nightmares”? Judging from the amount of comments given to those posts hardly anybody. Broaden the selection, and don’t let them be picked by one person.
EZTV knows how it’s done. They were slipping lately, but rlslog failed to move in.
I have to agree with the above post that EZTV.it really knows what they are doing when it comes to TV torrents.
And I must ask, how is EZTV able to offer such a fast, useful site without any of the annoying advertisements that rlslog has on this site? I’m sure EZTV gets more views than rlslog.net, but yet they do not have any ads. How can they do it, but rlslog can not?
TV shows are the main reason i come to this site and others keep up the good work peeps don’t listen to the mindless people that slate you
TV shows that should be covered here, that would generate more interest in Rlslog…
The Contender Asia
Hannah Montana
Well thats hardly suprising since since there is a new episode of god knows how many series each week unlike a movie like the is only a few a week. Yet another graph thing that someone has put a fair bit of work into that most logicaly thinking people could of already known.
I am waiting for another season of dexter, that will be my 50% percent of TV shows :P.
What’s stopping UK torrent users from switching over to downloading on IRC?
Never used to buy TV DVD box sets but since I started downloading torrents they now account for half my collection.
I must say I am glad about the small percentage being games. Even with the small amount of programming I have done it it ridiculous how much blood sweat and tears go into some of these things so I hate to download most of the time because they do a lot of work for not an exuberant amount of money and they should get what they deserve in return
More Poker and WWE series - They are popular!!
Keep up good work!
WORLDWIDE RELEASE DATES!!! Problem solved!
In the UK, Lost is aired on a Sunday night, I can have it downloaded and watched by the Friday before! If it was to air in all countries at the same time, I would watch it on TV no problem!! Same with Movies! If they are released on the same date! I would go watch it at the cinema!!
There are other site dedicate to TV shows so I dont think RLSLOG needs to focus on them. The blog style format doesnt mesh well with the multiple TV releases and is much better suited to the less frequent movie and software releases.
For example there have been 19 TV releases on EZTV alone and with a typical blog system you’re now 2 or 3 pages in before you get to another news or release. I say RLSLOG should stick to what it does best (give us 0 day news of the latest scene rips) and let EZTV and BT-Chat handle the TV.
If you try and be a Jack of all trades you end up as the master of none.
heh, I download tv shows to PUT them on my tivo with PyTivo.
More enjoyable then the computer screen sometimes =)
Just an insy-bit more work
Porn Counts for 99%. =D
I don’t use bittorent to download tv shows.. I use the links posted in the comments pretty much all the time hehe.
Some interesting points made in the article, i believe EZTV are right when they say that t.v torrents would have a more positive impact than a negative one and if your a true fan you would go out and buy the boxset - if not and you watched it on terrestrial t.v it would have the same outcome as watching it on PC - no money spent, no money gained.
Its good to know theres some people in the industry that realise this - its a smart move aswell to release screeners because then you know roughly the outcome of the show/movie.
64:
Lack of skill. Torrents are easy, personally I wouldn’t know how to use IRC or where to find channels for it
They should consider streaming their own shows with ads, I imagine there’d be a market for adspace with global coverage. I’d watch it, not too bothered with coke ads if I get the release at the same time as the yanks
P.S: My fave shows i recomend to people
Heroes
Taken
Quantum Leap
Now and Again
Dark Angel
Reaper
Enterprise
Smallville (can be good)
Twlight Zone
Outer Limits
There’s a big difference between rlslog & eztv.
You can’t expect rlslog to change up their style & system.
Those who don’t like going through tons of posts to find what they’re looking for gotta understand that this is a blog, works just like any other blog, BY ORDER OF DATE. There’s a SEARCH bar top right of the side. Get familiar with it.
Those who don’t like the ads, get firefox with the adblock addon.
………
I say rlslog should post less TV shows.
Focus on the big hits and new/unknown shows.
If posting as much TV shows as possible is time consuming and too much to handle, you should focus the posts on what people really want and perhaps below MOST RATED & MOST POP,
you add something for TV releases (NEWEST, HOT, MUST SEE, etc)
There are a lot of daily/weekly average shows which don’t really need an intro with comments and breakdown of what happens. Hells Kitchen for example
hehe they cook some food, ramsey fella gets mad, pretty much it. It’s entertaining but we know what to expect, we don’t need someone telling us each time 
ahem ahem mr..
…many shows are repetitive, which is why you should focus on the big hits with twists and compelling stories.
A heads up + a torrent link is more than enough for some shows.
Your approach on TV shows needs some brainstorming,
if you want it to accommodate and satisfy everyone while being possible and easy for the authors….
@ Deacon Thorn and of course “to whom it may concern”
automatic download of your preferred tv show
first you need to find a RSS feed: tvRSS.net is the first one and is the same u get from eztv.
then u point utorrent (win) or ktorrent (Ubuntu) to that feed and set your filters
that’s it, if you leave yr puter on at night, and u are in europe or africa, it will catch the feed as it pops out in the early morning (that’s just abt 4/10 hrs after the show first aired in the US) and by lunch time u should have it…
I like RLSLOG the way it is, if you want to get the latest episodes, I just told you howto; maybe just the episodes airing schedule and such could be a nice add
by the way, you completely missed the new HBO show In Treatment, each episode it’s a psicotherapy session, 1 each day from mon to fry, like real therapy…. love it or hate it
I like it
cheers
ooolè, just got the 14th episode, I’m gonna watch it while I’m having lunch…..
my laptop av connects to the TV so it’s just like a tivo/sky+ box except you get all the latest tv shows and movies , comercial free , usually a few months before UK screening , for no more than the cost of internet connection .
but if this is the way of the future for everyone I guess the US tv networks will start putting alot more pop-up ads during the programes , for products - not just other show promos , but I guess that’s ok … they’re advertisers can reach bigger audience with downloads , networks get revenue , and we wont get accused of stealing
Oh really ….if datz so why can’t i find first season torrent dvd of will & grace….
its not here
its not in torrentz or any other popular site……:(
DLing shows is also so much better than watching it on TV cause
1.No commercials
2.High Quality (HDTV)
3.FREE!!!
4.if u live in another country then it takes almost months for the latest episode to air there
5.u have full controll over the episode (pause,reverse)
@80 totally agree with those points, I usually watch a whole season using torrents and then eventually just buy the series on dvd, Heroes is the biggest culprit, that took so long to come to England, and season 2 has not been shown at all yet
piracy is inevatavle…!
I started downloading series with Lost. Usually shows air here in Finland 1-2 years later than original air date so I don’t want to wait so long. Also 720p releases are much better looking than regular tv image quality. I buy very good series like Twin Peaks later in dvd-box.
This is not a real info, because porn is missing
hmm did not see PORN in the pie chart, so its safe to say that the data is totally incomplete
yeah Bittorrent really helps promote tv shows, most of the tv shows that are leaked on the net first i come to later watch on TV… i also use bittorrent was tivo ‘cus i don’t have one lol
I see BT as a positive thing in the TV realm. After discovering shows I like on BT, I start tuning in each week, as I can see it sooner on TV than a copy can get online. Thanks to BT, I went from almost never watching TV, to keeping track of showtimes so I can catch my favorites.
For me, it’s actually even better if I watch the real broadcast–then I can see it in HD. Typically, I never want to spend the time downloading the HD copy, so I always grab the smallest one.
QUOTE “Sir Wonderful
February 15th, 2008 | 06:15
A good question for a poll Would you download LEGAL torrents (tv shows) if they contained commercials/advertising???”
Yes i would!…. If these TV stations get there act togeter and stop fighting the issue of illegal downloading and think of ways to still get there advertising dollar we can all live in harmony!
eg. If the stations would release a torrent/direct download of a TV show straight after it screens but with several (and not too many)advetrising popups in the corner to let them still make money but make it legal of course i would why not its ilegal and i dont have to wait days…. months… or years b4 my country screens it here…
BTW i have seen a couple of epesodes of prison break with adds in them, no big deal!!!
thank you!!!
Hello Grenzi, i have starded to study German about 6 months ago and i find it quite difficult, because unlike English i barely have contact with native German-Speaking people.
Perhaps,if you so desire, we can e-mail each other and talk, as i would love to learn more of your language and become more proeficient with it!
My email: chimeranegra@gmail.com
Many Thanks in advance!
Wow, people are just amazingly retarted.
I haven’t watched TV since ‘92. Who would want this bunch of crappity crap coming up his face in his PC?
And again, I just say: PORN!