True Detective Not One of the Top Pirated Shows of 2014

By Reuben Levine | Jan 2, 2015

Every time that True Detective doesn’t make a list or award of some kind, it’s not necessarily news. But it is in this particular case. Variety recently published a list of the top 10 pirated shows of 2014. True Detective isn’t as big of some of the other shows that did make the list, but the absence of it is still a little surprising.

After this summer’s Emmy awards a report was published on the piracy rates of certain popular shows. The heavy hitters were present, including Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, but True Detective also left its own mark.

True Detective’s presence at the awards was apparently enough to peak viewer’s interests, though apparently not enough to pay for it.

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The Emmy’s were arguably True Detective’s brightest moment in the sun, with everyone’s attention on True Detective’s placement in the Drama category as well as Matthew McConaughey’s chances at Best Actor.

As it turns out, however, that interest wasn’t enough to drive piracy rates through the roof.

That’s not necessarily a bad or good thing. The fact that True Detective didn’t make the list shows what kind of competition it had — Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and The Big Bang Theory, to name a few. Those three alone are earth-shatteringly popular shows, with The Walking Dead having broken a ratings record.

But it does also show that interest in True Detective is relatively low compared to the shows on the list. To put it into perspective, the lowest ranked show in the list, The Blacklist, was downloaded an estimated number of 14.2 million times. True Detective doesn’t have those numbers yet.

It feels odd to examine the piracy rates of a series and try to relate it to overall popularity, but there you have it.

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