Game of Thrones Season 4 Downloads
The "Game of Thrones" Season 4 finale broke new piracy records. HBO

As expected, the 'Game of Thrones' Season 4 finale delivered big numbers in terms of viewers and pirates. While 7.1 million viewers tuned in to watch "The Children" during the 9 p.m. EDT premiere, the Season 4 finale torrents averaged 1.5 million downloads in just 12 hours.

TorrentFreak reports on the record-breaking "Game of Thrones" Season 4 downloads. The Season 4 premiere, "Two Swords," broke previous piracy records for the number of people downloading a single torrent, with more than 100,000 users "seeding," sharing a completed file," and "leeching," downloading from seeders. Just a few weeks later, a "First of His Name" torrent became the first to have 200,000 actively sharing and downloading at the same time, known as a swarm, reports TorrentFreak.

"GoT" Season 4 downloads did not show any signs of slowing down and many expected "The Children" to break even more records. One "Game of Thrones" Season 4 finale torrent had a swarm of 250,000 and, based on tracking data, the season finale has been downloaded 1.5 million times in 12 hours, reports TorrentFreak.

On KickAss Torrents, the first torrents were available soon after "The Children" aired and complete Season 4 torrents quickly followed. As of Tuesday, the most popular "GoT" Season 4 finale torrent had 120,612 seeders and 15,447 leechers, for a swarm of 136,059, and downloaded close to 1 million times.

According to TorrentFreak, downloads for the finale will surpass 7.5 million in the next few weeks. "GoT" was the most pirated show on television for 2012 and 2013 and it will likely be the most pirated show for 2014.

Prior to the Season 4 finale, "GoT" became HBO's most popular show ever, with an average gross audience of 18.4 million per episode, besting "The Sopranos" which averaged 18.2 million during its 2002 season. The 7.1 million viewers was up 32 percent compared to the Season 3 finale, reports HBO, and "GoT" bumped its average gross audience to 18.6 million viewers for the season. Following two replays, the total viewership for the finale was 9.3 million.

The series has become a huge success for HBO and has crossed over into the mainstream. The "GoT" Twitter account posted a stat saying the search volume for the finale was 20 times higher than the World Cup match between the U.S. and Ghana.

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