After Clarkson, May and Hammond reunited under the Amazon umbrella, they managed to break not just the revamped Top Gear’s audience, but a world record in terms of online piracy too.
According to DailyMail, which quotes data compiled by MUSO, a global technology company providing anti-piracy info, the first episode of the new car show has been downloaded more than 7.9 million times using torrent websites, overtaking popular shows such as Game of Thrones.
Interest for The Grand Tour has slightly dropped to 6.4 million for episode two, while the third episode, the following week, has clocked 4.6 million downloads so far. Viewers in Britain account for up to 13.7 percent of the total, making Amazon lose a potential £3.2 million ($4 million) in revenue in this country alone, on episode one.
“It is the most illegally downloaded program 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“, MUSO’s chief commercial officer, Chris Elkins, said, while describing the trend as “absolutely incredible“.
It is said that the main reason for signing Clarkson&Co. was to get more viewers hooked into the Amazon Prime streaming service, which costs £79 ($100) annually. Currently, Amazon states that The Grand Tour can be legally viewed in over 200 countries.