On January 6th, following in FOX’s footsteps from 2011, ABC implemented a new VOD paywall policy that next-day access to full episodes of ABC TV shows would be restricted to cable or Hulu Plus subscribers. They stated that everyone else would have to wait a whole week to view them. ABC explained the reason for the change in their FAQ section.

Fans of many of the TV shows weren’t at all happy with this new policy. When hearing about this, Tru Optik, which provides real-time and predictive Audience Intelligence for the media, took interest in this to see just how impatient people actually were. They put together an inforgraphic showing the results of increased BitTorrent downloads as a result of this new policy.

Tru Optik noted that “every single ABC show had an increase of at least 50% or more in BitTorrent downloads from their last original episode. Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s winter premiere saw an over 300% increase in worldwide downloads last week and an almost 600% spike in day after downloads in the United States.”