Did The Grand Tour supplant Game of Thrones as the world’s most illegally downloaded show?

As an HBO exclusive, Game of Thrones has been holding down the title of “Most Illegally Downloaded Show on Earth” for a while. However, The Daily Mail is reporting that it’s been supplanted by Amazon’s The Grand Tour, an automotive show hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

I’ve never seen The Grand Tour, but from what I can tell, it’s a mix of documentary, reality TV and sketch comedy, all centered around cars. Here’s a clip where one of the hosts builds and drives a car made of bricks. Or outfitted with bricks. Just watch the clip:

I’d watch it.

Clarkson, Hammond and May previously hosted a tremendously popular BBC show called Top Gear, but left to start The Grand Tour after Clarkson punched a producer in the face. The BBC didn’t want to renew his contract after that.

Anyway, The Daily Mail got its information from MUSO, a data analytics firm. Said chief commercial officer Chris Elkins of The Grand Tour, “It is the most illegally downloaded programme ever.”

"It is off the scale in terms of volume. It has overtaken every big show, including Game Of Thrones, for the totals across different platforms."

Specifically, MUSO claims that the first episode of The Grand Tour was illegally downloaded 7.9 million times, the second 6.4 million times, and the third 4.6 million times. Those are huge numbers, particularly considering that the show is still in its first season. And as Amazon’s video platform doesn’t yet have as much market penetration as HBO’s, it makes sense that more people would resort to illegal downloading.

However, Elkins’ conclusion that The Grand Tour has overtaken Game of Thrones as “the most illegally downloaded promgramme ever” may need to be taken with a grain of salt, as Ars Technica points out.

"Last year TorrentFreak estimated that the season finale of Game of Thrones was downloaded 14.4 million times via BitTorrent, and all signs point to GoT increasing in popularity in 2016. Our own analysis mostly tallies with that of TorrentFreak, too. How did MUSO arrive at that figure of 7.9 million, then, and why was that enough for Grand Tour to steal the illustrious “most downloaded” mantle from Game of Thrones? Sadly, MUSO didn’t provide its methodology."

Also keep in mind that, when TorrentFreak estimated the number of illegal downloads of the Game of Thrones Season 5 finale, it was talking about downloads via BitTorrent alone. On the other hand, Elkins mentions “totals across different platforms” when discussing The Grand Tour downloads. If other platforms are factored into the GoT estimate, it will likely go up. There’s also the question of why illegal downloads of three episodes of The Grand Tour are being compared to one episode of Game of Thrones.

It may sound odd that I’m defending Game of Thrones’ title as “most illegally downloaded show ever,” particularly when that’s not a title most TV shows would be happy with, but I’m not sure all these numbers add up. I’ll be curious to hear what TorrentFreak has to say if it does another illegal download report at the end of the year.