Disney wrapped up 2020 with plenty to celebrate and a lot to look forward to in 2021. Consolidating at over 80 million subscribers worldwide, Disney Plus is becoming more appealing with every passing day and that’s in large part thanks to The Mandalorian.
Just fresh off its second season, The Mandalorian remains Disney’s biggest new seller for its streaming service and the series’ success has driven the company to plan a slew of new Star Wars shows for the future, including some direct spin-offs from it. However, despite all its official success, The Mandalorian also gets quite a lot of unofficial internet credentials.
According to TorrentFreak, The Mandalorian has ended Game of Thrones’ reign of nearly a decade as the world’s most pirated TV show, climbing up three spots from its previous placement in 2019. The rest of the podium is rounded off by The Boys and Westworld, meaning that the three most in-demand series in 2020 would have normally required users to be subscribed to three different services: Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, and HBO.
While the list does offer a nice perspective on the current television trends all around the world, the study is far from conclusive as TorrentFreak’s own metrics recognize they only account for BitTorrent trackers, which is only one of many torrent download services, aside from illegal streaming options that also enable watching the same content. The top three are then followed by Vikings, Star Trek: Picard, Rick and Morty, The Walking Dead, The Outsider, Arrow, and The Flash.
It does bear saying that Disney Plus was not immediately available in many countries at the start of 2020. For example, the service only officially launched in Europe in March 2020, April for India, adding more European countries in September before finally becoming available in Latin America this past November. What this means is that even those that were happy to pay for Disney Plus may have not had the option to do so until fairly recently.
While piracy as a whole is a worldwide issue for studios like Disney, it is much more prevalent in developing countries where Disney Plus' $7.99 monthly fee has a much bigger impact on tighter budgets. Curiously enough Netflix originals don’t seem to be as affected as other streaming services, perhaps suggesting consumers are more willing to pay for its content rather than outright appeal to piracy.
The Mandalorian is available on Disney Plus.
Source: TorrentFreak