The FOX TV series “Prison Break” tells the story of a man who was put on death row and his brother’s mission to land in the same prison to get both of them out – from within. More than eight years have passed since the last episode of the fourth season was aired on May 15, 2009. Season 4 was supposed to be the end of the story.
But “Prison Break: Resurrection” – a new installment of the action drama series – gave the original series’ characters a second lease on life, delighting fans from all over the world. Whether a new season will be released in the future is still up in the air, but speculations are in full swing! To see whether there’s potential for a new season, we took a look at the viewership numbers for “Prison Break” within P2P networks and asked ourselves a few questions:
How popular was the series before and during the release window? How many new fans have been added to the total number of viewers and have caught up on Season 1? Where are the most fans located worldwide? To answer these questions, we dug up some facts about the show’s viewership numbers to see what the file sharing data analysis for older episodes suggest about the chance that the show’s creators will tack on another sentence for “Prison Break”.
HOW DID NEWS ABOUT THE SEASON 5 REVIVAL IMPACT VIEWERSHIP NUMBERS FOR OLDER EPISODES?
More than two years ago, the first speculations of a continuation of "Prison Break" went viral. Later, news broke about a possible fifth season, spiking P2P users’ interest in the show and increasing viewership numbers for the series overall. Two months after the news leaked, the producers put all speculations to rest on August 6, 2015, by finally announcing that a new season would be released by either the end of 2016 or the beginning of 2017. The following day, the number of P2P users rose to 23,497 and remained relatively stable until mid-November, with a daily average of over 20,000 file sharers.
In the first months of 2016, the initial euphoria began to wane. Viewership numbers sank to a daily average of 9,500 file sharers who downloaded and shared episodes of the first four seasons of “Prison Break”. As soon as the first trailer for the new installment was released on May 16, 2017, file sharing activity increased once again. From here on out, viewership numbers saw sustainable growth, with a daily average of 16,700 P2P users until the end of 2016. And on January 11, 2017, the official air dates were announced, which once again led to a boost in the number of viewers (see infographic).
In total, 5.83 million file sharers worldwide downloaded and shared “Prison Break” episodes from the time the first speculations arose in June 2015 to the release of Season 5 in April 2017.
2.09 MILLION FILE SHARERS WORLDWIDE CAUGHT UP ON SEASON 1 FROM THE INITIAL BUZZ TO THE ACTUAL RELEASE OF SEASON 5
To prepare themselves for Season 5, a large number of P2P users downloaded and shared files from Season 1. The highest viewership numbers for the first season were reached about three months before the official air date on January 13, 2017. And as soon as news about the official air date were announced, an average of 15,000 daily file sharers downloaded and shared Season 1 until the new season began on April 4, 2017.
VIEWERSHIP NUMBERS DURING THE RELEASE PERIOD: 10.67 MILLION P2P USERS DOWNLOADED AND SHARED ‘PRISON BREAK’ FILES!
The fifth season of FOX's “Prison Break” finally found its way back to TV screens on April 4, 2017. According to Nielsen TV rating data, the viewership numbers for U.S. television took a turn for the worse during the Season 5 release period. Beginning with the season premiere, "Ogygia", TV ratings mostly drop with one episode to the next. The season finale "Behind the Eyes", which was aired on May 30, 2017, saw a decline in ratings of nearly 40% compared with the premiere episode of Season 5, according to Nielsen TV rating data. This trend was also reflected in the U.S. file sharing statistics for the Season 5 release period, where the number of fans continuously declined. Nevertheless, this doesn’t apply to every country and is not the only indicator of how popular a TV series is, nor of how much potential future continuations may hold.
During the Season 5 release window, the number of viewers reached more than 10.67 million file sharers worldwide, all of whom downloaded and shared episodes of the show through P2P networks. Unsurprisingly, the majority of viewers (85%) jumped on the bandwagon for the latest season. And what were the total viewership numbers for Season 5 during its release window? A cool 9.28 million.
When analyzing files from “Prison Break” Season 5 on their own, we see that viewership numbers for the days each respective episode was released range between 360,000 and 430,000. Capturing a total of 428,213 P2P users, the fourth episode titled “The Prisoner’s Dilemma” was the most popular episode from Season 5.
‘PRISON BREAK’ SEASON 5 OUTMATCHED AMC’S ‘THE WALKING DEAD’ IN TERMS OF NEWLY HOOKED FANS!
After the season’s second episode aired on April 13, 2017, a total of 34,100 daily P2P users – the highest viewership number so far – decided to catch up on the show from the very beginning. Compared with the successful zombie series “The Walking Dead” – or its prequel “Fear the Walking Dead” – more fans converted to the “Prison Break” fan base. TWD Season 7 and FTWD Season 3 part 1, for example, peaked with 26,100 and 22,400 newly hooked P2P users, respectively – a rough average of 10,000 less than “Prison Break” Season 5
WHERE WERE THE HIGHEST VIEWERSHIP NUMBERS AROUND THE GLOBE FOR ‘PRISON BREAK’ SEASON 5?
Brazil. That’s where we caught the highest viewership numbers for "Prison Break" Season 5, followed by China, India, Russia and Pakistan. There were, however, a couple European countries that crept into the ranks, with Spain and the U.K. landing spots 7 and 8 respectively.
In Brazil, where the show was most popular when compared with the rest of the world, “Prison Break” landed spot 3 in the most popular series ranking during the Season 5 release window, amassing a total of 1,302,922 P2P users. On a global scale, however, “Prison Break” was the most popular show overall during this same period, with a total of 10.67 million P2P users worldwide. But in terms of the top series list for the United States specifically, the show, reaching 274,185 P2P users, only managed to snag spot 6 in the U.S.
Breaking down the country figures to the city level, the Saudi Arabian cities Riyadh and Jeddah generated the highest viewership numbers, locking down spots 1 and 3 respectively. Greece’s capital of Athens, meanwhile, took spot 2. Although there aren’t any American cities among the top 20, the United States ranked ninth at the country level, with 274,185 file sharers during the Season 5 release period.
HIGHEST VIEWERSHIP NUMBERS ACCORDING TO ISPs USED FOR FILE SHARING
Because the highest viewership numbers for the fifth season came from Brazil, it’s not very surprising that the Brazilian ISP Vivo landed the top spot among ISPs used to share files of the TV series in P2P networks. Chinese and Indian ISPs, on the other hand, didn’t make it to the top 5 because the remaining spots were already taken by Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., SaudiNet, Telecom Algeria and Rostelecom.
Key takeaways:
1. Total viewership numbers for “Prison Break” during the Season 5 release period: 10.67 million
2. With the total viewership number of 10.67 million, "Prison Break" was the most popular TV series worldwide during the release window of Season 5 3. A growing fan base: the viewership numbers for new fans who caught up on Season 1 before the release of
Season 5: 2.09 million 4. Compared with AMC's “The Walking Dead”, FOX's “Prison Break” managed to attract more new viewers during the release period for its latest season
5. The most engaged viewers were located in South American, Asian and European countries – as opposed to North American countries To sum up our analysis, file sharing statistics could lead fans to suspect another continuation of “Prison Break”, especially for target markets where the show has gained a captive audience among P2P networks users. But for now, we can only speculate. If any rumors about a potential Season 6 break loose, we’ll be sure to give you the inside scoop!
Source: TECXIPIO PIC Definition: Number of file sharers: How many peers shared at least one file of the respective "Prison Break" episode within this time period?