Disney has been trying to grow subscribers and monetize Disney+. It’s been their focus since launch and they even restructured the company to prioritize “direct-to-consumer” divisions, like the Disney+ Streaming platform. Sadly, there is a bit of bad news, they are stalling out on subscribers, but people are watching their shows, they just aren’t paying for them.
According to Torrent Freak’s list of “Most Pirated TV Shows of 2021” Marvel’s “Phase 4” shows on Disney+ make up 50% of the list. The top show got millions of downloads just by itself.
(They do note this is based on episodes and complete seasons. Although most of these shows would remain in the top 10 either way.)
What shows are on the list?
There are six shows, all Marvel. Sitting at number one by a wide margin is ‘WandaVision.’ Not only was it the first Disney+ Marvel show, it was probably the most popular overall.
According to Torrent Freak: “The series was a hit on Disney+ and on pirate sites, with each episode being downloaded millions of times.” They also note that the data just reflects only BitTorrent traffic and no the other sites out there.
The number two spot went to ‘Loki.’ Third place skips a Disney series and goes to “The Witcher” (which was released originally in 2019 and is older, but still in top 10. Impressive.)
Fourth went to ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ while the fifth spot went to ‘Hawkeye.’
Finally the sixth spot rounded out Disney/Marvel offerings with ‘What if…?’
It does seem to reflect how well the series performed from paid subscribers. ‘WandaVision’ and ‘Loki’ did seem to perform a lot higher than the other shows when looking at the Disney+ data.
But from Disney’s perspective, how much money has this cost them? If we are talking millions of downloads that adds up to a lot of subscribers. I personally have heard many people saying they don’t want to give Disney any money given recent behavior and decisions by the company, but even I’m surprised by the alleged number of unpaid downloads from people “sailing the high seas.”
I have to wonder what Disney is going to do about it, because I do not think they will sit back and lose money. Especially when money seems to be their top priority at the company.
What do you think? Comment and let us know!
Source: TorrentFreak
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