Jeremy Clarkson’s TV comeback The Grand Tour is the most illegally downloaded show in history, researchers claim.
Official figures for the series, which stars Clarkson’s old Top Gear presenters James May and Richard Hammond and had an estimated budget of £160m, have not been revealed by maker Amazon.
But since the trio moved into the world of internet streaming in November, the first episode was illegally downloaded 7.9 million times, according to statistics compiled by MUSO, leading data analysts in the piracy market, for the Mail on Sunday.
The second episode was illegally downloaded 6.4 million times, while the figure for the third episode is 4.6 million, the newspaper reported.
Online pirates log on to websites that have stolen The Grand Tour rather than subscribing to Amazon with viewers in Britain making up about 13.7 per cent of the total.
Chris Elkins, MUSO chief commercial officer, told the Mail on Sunday: “It is the most illegally downloaded programme ever. It is off the scale in terms of volume.
“It has overtaken every big show, including Game Of Thrones, for the totals across different platforms.”
Amazon, which could have lost a potential £3.2 million in revenue in Britain alone on episode one, told the newspaper: “The Grand Tour has become the biggest show premiere ever on Amazon Prime Video, breaking records around the world.”
