It seems we Indians have a natural inclination towards drama; it would explain why saas-bahu serials do so well and it also explains why roughly 10 percent of the torrent downloads of the Season 6 premier of "Game of Thrones" were from India.
The report published by TorrentFreak reveals that India ranked second in the number of downloads of the series, contributing to 9.7 percent of the traffic. Australia takes the top spot with a 12.5 percent share of the downloads, with the U.S and the U.K. coming third and fourth, respectively.
The report adds that the episode was available online a few minutes after it was aired, crossing 100,000 downloads in a few hours. According to the gathered data, over a million users downloaded the episode in about twelve hours, and that over 200,000 people shared or seeded the episode.
The report revealed that viewers did not really appear to be worried about hitting the data cap on their internet plans, as downloads were mostly for the heavier HD prints of the episode. A few were of the low-resolution 480p prints. TorrentFreak adds that a few years ago, HD prints accounted for only 10 percent of the traffic.
The report also states that the data being studied was sourced from BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing client and that the fact that HBO, which produces and broadcasts the show in the U.S., was available for free in the U.S. may have contributed to this season's downloads not breaking last season's finale episode's numbers.
Hotstar, the Indian video streaming site, also announced that it would be making "Game of Thrones" episodes available minutes after they were aired in the U.S. as part of its paid service.
