Subscription services are great, but when you create a service with exclusive content that everyone wants, but yet you don’t offer it on a global basis, you shouldn’t be surprised if consumers start getting creative. That’s pretty much what Amazon is finding out with regards to “The Grand Tour”.
According to a report from the Daily Mail, it seems that the first episode of The Grand Tour has been illegally downloaded a whopping 7.9 million times. Its second episode saw 6.4 million downloads, while the third episode racked up 4.6 million. It also seems that the majority of the pirates come from the UK, which we reckon is a bit funny considering the show’s hosts used to host BBC’s Top Gear, a show which is now fronted by an American host.
The numbers were compiled by MUSO, data analysts of the piracy market. According to MUSO’s CCO Chris Elkins, ”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.” Without doubt the hosts’ popularity has attributed to the piracy, but like we said earlier, Amazon Prime (which is needed to watch the show) isn’t available globally yet.
This means that countries without Prime pretty much only have piracy as an alternative for now. It has also been estimated that the piracy has cost Amazon £3.2 million in revenue.
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