The Walking Dead's eighth season premiere aired last weekend to a five-year ratings low with its total viewers down one-third from last season's kickoff, per Variety. But AMC's flagship zombie series also sustained a severe dip in another measure: online piracy. Users torrenting this year's premiere were down 42% from last year, according to the piracy measurement service TECXIPIO.
Why it matters: A 2013 Columbia University study indicated that pirates are overwhelmingly likely to be younger and more technologically savvy — exactly the target audience a network would desire for driving a zeitgeisty television series. So while AMC might chalk up the drop in viewers illegally watching The Walking Dead to its anti-piracy efforts, this trend suggests that the network's cash cow series is losing its cachet with intelligent, Internet-savvy users while a contemporary like Game of Thrones has seen both its ratings and piracy numbers go through the roof.
