---
title: "The Grand Tour May Be The Most Pirated TV Show Ever"
description: "Take that, Game of Thrones. "
date: "2016-12-12"
modified: "2016-12-12"
authors:
  - name: "Will Sabel Courtney"
    job_title: "Contributor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/will-sabel-courtney"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/6460/the-grand-tour-may-be-the-most-pirated-tv-show-ever"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "A-List"
  - "Amazon"
  - "The Grand Tour"
---

# The Grand Tour May Be The Most Pirated TV Show Ever

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/the-grand-tour-clarkson-may-hammond-piracy-hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

Seems there are quite a few people out there who really don’t want free two-day shipping. [Amazon Prime’s *The Grand Tour* has been illegally downloaded](<https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4021280/Grand-Theft-Auto-Clarkson-s-TV-comeback-illegally-downloaded-history-viewers-pirating-episode-7-9million-times.html>) more than any other TV show in history, a new report from a data analysis firm claims.

According to *The Daily Mail*, which said it received an exclusive first look at a report on the pirated download activity of Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond’s new internet TV show, [the first three episodes have been illegally downloaded 18.9 million times](<https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/11/amazons-grand-tour-is-the-most-pirated-show-ever/>).

“It is the most illegally downloaded programme ever. It is off the scale in terms of volume,” Chris Elkins, chief commercial officer of piracy market analysis company MUSO, told *The Daily Mail*. “'It has overtaken every big show, including *Game Of Thrones*, for the totals across different platforms.”

Amazon, like fellow online television platforms Netflix and Hulu, doesn’t release information about how many people watch its programs. However, the online bookstore-turned-content provider has spent a mint developing and promoting *The Grand Tour*; the company has reportedly budgeted around $200 million for the first three seasons of the series, and has taken a full-court press approach to promoting it around the world in a variety of ways (including [leaving demolished Toyota Priuses scattered around the planet](<https://www.thedrive.com/news/6028/the-grand-tour-is-leaving-crashed-priuses-around-the-world>)).

[The first episode was by far the most stolen](<https://www.thedrive.com/article/6131/the-grand-tour-is-great-except-for-one-small-thing>), with 7.9 million illegal downloads reportedly noted; [the second episode has reportedly been stolen 6.4 million times](<https://www.thedrive.com/article/6214/episode-2-of-the-grand-tour-wasnt-great-jeremy-clarkson-doesnt-care>), while [the third episode has reportedly been boosted 4.3 million times](<https://www.thedrive.com/article/6361/episode-three-of-the-grand-tour-was-grand>). MUSO estimates that the downloads of the first episode alone robbed Amazon of around $4 million in revenue.

Unlike Netflix and Hulu, which bill users on a monthly basis for access to their library of streaming video, Amazon bundles its original content into the $99-per-year fee for its Amazon prime suite of services, which also includes free two-day shipping on many items and access to a large audio streaming library. Amazon said *The Grand Tour*’s debut date noted the second-highest number of users signing up for the service of any day in 2016, though it did not offer specifics.

And in a twist sure to make some executives at the BBC smile, viewers in the hosts’ native Britain were the worst offenders when it came to pirating *The Grand Tour*, comprising 13.7 of all the illegal downloads. That’s not quite real irony, but it’s at least the Alanis Morrisette version.

## Author
Will is the former managing editor of *RIDES Magazine* and the former online editor for *0-60 Magazine*. He has worked for *Time Out New York* and *Rolling Stone*, and was the creator of *College Cars Online*, the first automotive blog specifically targeted at college students and young professionals.

### Author social links  
[Instagram](<https://instagram.com/willsabelcourtney>)  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/willscourtney>)