TRACKING THE WALKING DEAD PART 2/4
Possibly the most popular zombie series in the entertainment landscape of all time is worth a detailed analysis - here is part II of our Four-Part Series: "The Walking Dead" top rankings!
EPISODES MOST SHARED ON THEIR DAY OF RELEASE
Episodes that were most popular on their day of release don’t seem to follow any specific pattern. Episodes 16, 15 and 7 of Season 3, for example, were the most shared episodes on the days they were released. For season 7, however, the most popular episodes were episodes 1, 5 and 4. In total, the number of file sharers on release days increased steadily up to Season 6, followed by a spike in activity when Episode 4, “Here’s Not Here” – the most popular episode of "The Walking Dead" from Season 3 to 7 – was released on November 1, 2015, with an impressive total of 1,327,557 file sharers.
WHICH SEASONS WERE SHARED MOST DURING RELEASE WINDOWS?
As we revealed in Part 1 of our series on ‘The Walking Dead’, the most popular season since Season 3 was, in fact, Season 3. Since then, the numbers of P2P users who shared the latest episodes in subsequent release windows couldn’t beat out the 32.86 million P2P users active during Season 3. Of the most popular TWD seasons, Season 4 comes in second place, followed by the recent release of Season 7, which was shared by nearly 1 million fewer fans. Least successful was the release of Season 5 – at least according to file sharer popularity since episodes were shared by 31.15 million P2P users.
SOUTH AMERICA, EUROPE AND ASIA OUTRANK THE U.S., TWD’S HOME COUNTRY
Looking at the episode analysis of seasons 5 to 7, there seems to have been a gradual decline in the show’s English-speaking fan base from season to season. Brazil, on the other hand, holds first place in every season analyzed and has managed to consistently increase its fan base. Russia and China, which are generally among the countries with the most peer-to-peer network users, have also shown an uninterrupted interest in the story around the main characters Rick, Daryl, Carl and the whole group fighting against the Walkers. Spain and France are in a similar situation. But let’s have a closer look at file sharing rates by city.
"THE WALKING DEAD" TOP CITY RANKING
The top 10 cities, most of which are located in Brazil, did not change significantly over the last few years. The Brazilian city São Paulo came out on top, with a total of 520,995 file sharers for Season 7 episode releases (the equivalent to one in every 22 São Paulo inhabitants ). Another top city which appears at the "The Walking Dead" ranking was the Greek capital Athens, which came in second, with 393,060 P2P users downloading and sharing TWD. Greece as a whole, however, wasn’t at all among the top 10 file sharing countries. In fact, “fan islands” within a low-ranking country are not uncommon. Examples of this are Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, which ranked fourth with 371,903 file sharers; the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, which ranked seventh with 298,198; and South Korea’s capital Seoul, which ranked eighth with 261,006 sharers – none of which resulted in their countries’ inclusion into the top 10 country ranking.
The shift away from English-speaking countries was also verified at the city level. Cities in the United Kingdom and the United States fell dramatically in chart rankings. London, for example, ranked 12th during Season 6, with 214,496 file sharers, and dropped down to rank 71 during Season 7, with 71,802 file sharers. Los Angeles was the highest-ranking U.S. city with only 29,782, which gained it a spot at 163 on the global charts. During season 7, Los Angeles again dropped to rank 204, with 24,474 file sharers. After analyzing the data, it’s clear that interest in English-speaking countries has been in steady decline; we couldn’t find an indication of this trend reversing itself anytime soon.
WHO HOSTS THE MOST TWD FILE SHARERS?
According to the total number of file sharers, four of the top 10 ISPs that are used to share episodes of the zombie series are in Brazil. Vivo in Brazil and Rostelecom in Russia had the highest number of file sharers both during the latest season of TWD and over the last few years. Generally speaking, there hasn’t been much change among the top ISPs during the season release windows of TWD. The last couple of years have largely been dominated by the same providers, some of whom merely switch ranks from time to time.
The following infographic illustrates the top 10 ISPs during Season 7’s release period:
Want to keep moving through the United States special of TWD? Then explore the U.S. fan base or move directly to the piracy statistics of "The Walking Dead" Season 8!
Source: TECXIPIO
Definition: The file sharing data is based on the number of unique file sharers: How many peers (file sharers) shared at least one file of 'The Walking Dead' within a given period?