With 2014 nearing its end we begin our yearly roundup of the most-pirated entertainment titles across various categories, starting today with TV-shows. Game of Thrones takes the crown for the third year in a row, followed by The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory.

Game of Thrones has taken the crown of most downloaded TV-show for the third consecutive year.

With more than 8 million downloads via BitTorrent, the 2014 season finale is way ahead of the competition.

The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory complete the top three with an estimated 4.2 and 3.6 million downloads respectively.

Game of Thrones’ top listing doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Earlier this year it broke an all-time piracy record when more than 254,114 peers shared the same torrent file simultaneously.

Overall there is no sign that TV-show piracy is declining, on the contrary. The download numbers for the most popular shows continues to rise, sometimes exceeding the number of traditional viewers in the US.

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows worldwide (single episode) for 2014, together with the viewer average in the US. The data is estimated by TorrentFreak based on several sources, including download statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers.

Online streaming and downloads for file-hosting services are not included since there are no public sources to draw data from. Total piracy numbers will therefore be significantly higher.