The Mandalorian beat a popular, fan-favorite show in taking the spot for the #1 pirated TV show last year.
Disney always strives to be the best and at the top of its game in everything, but this new accolade Disney received definitely isn’t one it’d want to add to its list. And according to a new report, it’s all to do with one of its best TV shows to date: The Mandalorian.
This week, Variety has reported that The Mandalorian topped the list of most-pirated TV shows in 2020. We’re not sure we can call this accomplishment “most impressive” in full integrity, but the new Disney+ show has beat a series that apparently has stayed at the top for about a decade — and that show is Game of Thrones. With the final season airing in 2019, it makes sense that the HBO series would stay at the top last year while The Mandalorian peaked at #3 for its first season. And with no new Game of Thrones in 2020, that left The Mandalorian season 2 to assume the #1 spot. At least, this is all according to a report from TorrentFreak and its torrent downloads data, which Variety cites as the source of this information.
For those wondering what else made the list outside of The Mandalorian, other most-pirated TV shows include Westworld, Star Trek: Picard, The Walking Dead, The Boys and Vikings.
So, what does this mean for The Mandalorian and Disney+? Honestly, it’s not a huge loss for them. The Mandalorian season 2 premiere in late October was a win for Disney+ and saw tremendous ratings. Disney+ itself announced last month that it far surpassed its initial subscriber goals when it launched back in November 2019. The streaming service originally expected to reach 90 million paid subscribers within four years of launch, but they nearly matched that within the first year by accumulating a grand total of 86.8 million subscribers. Perhaps Disney was playing modest with its original goal, but they now estimate the number of subscribers will grow 230-260 million by the end of 2024.
Because of the huge array of content going to be offered by Disney+, the streaming service also announced that the monthly price of a subscription would be raised to $7.99 per month (from $6.99) in March, but that doesn’t seem to have subscribers running for the hills. Other subscription companies have raised prices as well, and most subscribers stayed put. So that’s also a good sign for the streaming service.
Still, as the evidence shows, there will continue to be those on the outskirts who opt to watch their television elsewhere. But with Disney in a comfortable position right now, we won’t be one to judge!