Pirate TV Services Are Taking a Bite Out of Cable Company Revenue (arstechnica.co.uk) 132
TV piracy services are being used by about 6.5 percent of North American households with broadband access, potentially costing legitimate TV providers billions of dollars a year, a new analysis found. From a report: Pirate services that offer live TV channels are apparently responsible for more downstream traffic each night than torrent downloads. Based on these figures, there may be 7 million US and Canadian subscribers to pirate TV services that generally cost about $10 a month, the report by Sandvine said. That amounts to $840 million of revenue a year. We don't know how many people using pirate services would purchase a traditional cable or satellite TV package if the piracy option didn't exist. But if all of those people instead purchased a legal TV package for $50 per month, that would amount to another $4.2 billion revenue a year for North American pay-TV providers, the report said.
Assumptions (Score:5, Informative)
But if all of those people instead purchased a legal TV package for $50 per month
Let me stop you right there...
These devices cost like $50 - I don't think people would suddenly come up with 12x that just because the little device they picked up on the street was not working.
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Then consider that the reason people do get a stream is because they don't want to pay $50/month for following a single show. Or $100/month for following a specific sports series that occurs a few weekends per year.
No wonder people grab a stream if they can. If there were legal pay per view streams that were easy to access and with no side effects like getting a kiloton of promo emails and crap from it then people would probably be attracted to that. Pay $5 to see a F1 race could work - if it could be paid
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Re:Assumptions (Score:5, Funny)
I know right?
"If you liked your grey-market TV package at $10, let me tell you about a GREAT deal! For the low, low price of $50 you can get exactly the same thing, with the added benefit of 13 religious channels, a Filipino-language cooking channel, and 75 home shopping channels! Trust me, you'd totally love it at $50. Because we; your poor, downtrodden cable company need your money. The legal expense needed to maintain a nationwide jihad against municipal ISP's and google fiber add up! Please, think of your cable company Subscribe today"
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Not to mention that these devices - despite the pain that Kodi can cause in finding dead streams - work better than the cable box. You just plug the fire stick or whatever into the HDMI slot, hook it to your WiFi, and go. Somehow Comcast can't seem to get things working without a visit from a contractor who - after arriving at some 4 hour window (maybe) - drills holes through the side of your house. And for this honor you pay $100+ per month.
I feel for the companies competing with the grey market, but not t
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drills holes through the side of your house
And they have the audacity to call this "professional installation."
Re:Assumptions (Score:4, Funny)
Well, an amatuer wouldn't know to wrap the cable around the outside of the attic fan once or twice so that it stays in place when the wind picks up.
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That IS "professional installation". There's no audacity needed; they're being completely honest. The person drilling big holes through the side of your house is a professional: he does this work every day as a full-time job.
It's just like when you get your car professionally serviced by a mechanic, and he over-torques the oil drain bolt or the wheel nuts, leaving you with an expensive repair bill. These are professionals, and this is what you can expect from professional servicepeople.
The question is: w
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Amateurs make money doing things all the time. Don't dilute words.
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low price of $50 you can get exactly the same thing
I take issue with that, you don't think you get super-set of the same thing, (although I don't subscribe to either cable or pirate streaming), you probably get less shows that you want to seen on cable, because of licensing and regional deals especially if you are not in the US.
I assume on the pirate channels you get all popular shows no matter who produces them. But that is the battle cry of cable providers, a worse product for a higher price.
What this article does show is people are willing to pay for con
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The stuff I want at a price I can pay. Sounds good.
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How long do you think...
I'm going to assume never, as it's cheaper to buy increasingly stronger and more punitive IP laws.
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Pirate TV, what a crock. The TV is being legally broadcast at it's location, done and finished. You the end user are just digitally placing yourself at that location, it is not being rebroadcast, that is a lie, you are pulling it down, you go to that location to get it, how your route to get there is neither here no there. Just another great big ole fat pigopolist lie. Complete legal broadcast and it is completely legal for you to watch it, whether you travel there in person or do so digitally by what ever
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Just to put this into some context...
In the UK, I pay a yearly 'tv license' which costs £147 (http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/tv-licence-types-and-costs-top2).
I then choose to pay for Amazon Prime (which was initially to get the shipping benefits, but now comes with video) - £79/year (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/prime/pipeline/landing)
I also choose to buy a Netflix service, which just went up to £8/month (£96/year)
So in total, I pay £322, which Google
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That is hands-down a better deal than I have. I also pay for Amazon Prime (though we rarely use the video service), Netflix, and Broadband Internet. Recently we also got a basic cable package because... not sure. I think my mother-in-law got bent out of shape that there was no CNN or something. Our internet is quite good - fiber to the house for about $80/month (bundled with unlimited phone... which sits largely unused hooked to the burglar alarm as we use our mobile phones) at 150/150 Mbps and is very reli
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No, just no (Score:5, Insightful)
TV piracy services are being used by about 6.5 percent of North American households with broadband access, potentially costing legitimate TV providers billions of dollars a year, a new analysis found.
potentially costing legitimate TV providers billions of dollars a year, a new analysis found.
potentially costing legitimate TV providers billions of dollars a year
potentially
No. Just no. Not a potential no, a solid diamond-hard no. Like, seriously Chuck Norris testicles-hard no.
Every study ever on the subject concludes a solid 'no'. Even the frikkin RIAA/MPAA alliance of Evil that has supplanted Satan as the goto source of pure Evil hasn't found a single study to support that losses from poor services translate into increased sales if you muscle the competition out.
No.
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The cable industry is really devoted to the "force people to use a shitty service" model.
If they would start offering services that people actually wanted for a price they are willing to pay they might be able to turn things around, but everyone in big content seems to be really against that idea.
Re: No, just no (Score:1)
They did do this it's called Netflix. Good price, good content.
The local crap cable ( Foxtel in Australia) markets the crap out of GoT. But even then if you just wait a little you can but the whole season from Google/Apple for a fraction of the subscription price. It boggles the mind that these companies can't use their resources to migrate to a streaming model, they have mountains of content, provide better service and reduce their operating costs.
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The only thing they can say is that they're losing the exact same amount that people are paying for those pirate TV services.
Given the choice between $10 per month for either illegal or legal service, assuming the service was giving them the exact same content, most people would chose the legal service.
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Even at $10 a month, its hard to see how its worth paying for that dross.
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No, they can't even say that because there is no way they'd get 100% conversion.
We are a 100% Netflix household. I'm sure by their stats we're one of those pesky pirates and "costing them money".
The problem is, I'm not costing them money. I'm refusing to give them my money, and instead I'm paying someone who delivers exactly what I want.
And that is no commercials ... no shows which
Re:No, just no (Score:4, Funny)
No. Just no. Not a potential no, a solid diamond-hard no. Like, seriously Chuck Norris testicles-hard no.
Ok... sooo... I'll put you down as a "maybe". ;)
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Maybe, but there's absolutely nothing stopping the cablecos from offering their own, stripped-down $10/month streaming services.
The "pirates" are just taking advantage of an unserviced market.
No commercials (Score:3)
Duh. Of course the pirate TV services are preferred, they don't have commercials.
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What are you talking about? Since that's not what the article is talking about.
They not talking about rips put up for upload, they're talking about live tv pirates that stream live TV to users.
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Ah, my mistake. I thought they were talking about sites like tvids.net
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No, it's not like PPV, it's because, especially in Canada, there is millions of immigrants now, from around the world, who sometimes would like to see the channels they had at their previous home, Being the French who wants to see TF1/France2/France3/whatever to Italians who wants RAI to Belgians who want RTBF to Germans who wants ARD/ZDF to Russian to Arabs to Greek to whatever etc etc etc ad infinitum.
There is no way to see them legally.
Their own fault (Score:5, Insightful)
for not providing reasonably prices a la carte options. Or people *would* give them money.
Re:Their own fault (Score:5, Insightful)
This.
Plus, the damn commercials. Everytime I sit down in front of my TV and starting paging through channels to find something interesting to watch (a challenge in itself) the station I invariably settle on is mid-commercial, and then it continues for another 3 to 4 minutes. Finally the program returns, but 5 minutes later, we're back to 12 more commercials back-to-back.
All the while, because I pay Comcast over a hundred dollars every month, I'm paying them to watch all these commercials! Increasingly, near 50% of my viewing time is now wasted on commercials. And none of them make me want to go out and buy their stupid product.
Especially the pharmaceuticals: "May cause dizziness, rash, diarrhea, difficulty in breathing, loss of consciousness, extreme pain, bloody stools, flaccidity, amputation, blindness, suicidal thoughts, insanity, lesions, boils, bubonic plague, anal warts, vomiting up toads and lizards, violent convulsions, death, and likely poltergeist activity.
I'd like to see the whole thing crash and burn, cable television has gotten beyond greedy.
Comcast (Score:2)
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You forgot "Sexual Disfunction" They all list it as a side effect.
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Some time ago there was only over the air TV that used to be free but there were commercials, then the cable company come saying: we will charge small fee and you will be watching TV without commercials, fast forward to today, you pay for the cable and you also watch commercials.
Fuck you cable corp, now its time to pay for you own greed!
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Especially the pharmaceuticals: "May cause dizziness, rash, diarrhea, difficulty in breathing, loss of consciousness, extreme pain, bloody stools, flaccidity, amputation, blindness, suicidal thoughts, insanity, lesions, boils, bubonic plague, anal warts, vomiting up toads and lizards, violent convulsions, death, and likely poltergeist activity.
That's the pharmaceuticals? I thought it was the commercials that had those side-effects!
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for not providing reasonably prices a la carte options. Or people *would* give them money.
And, upstream, not letting Disney force providers/you to pay for ESPN1-n, ABC Family, etc... in order to get ABC and The Disney Channel.
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Hulu costs $10 a month (Score:4, Interesting)
So does the pirate TV they are talking about.
Do they think Hulu is a pirate tv channel?
Are they too stupid to realize that the people that pay for pirate TV would use HULU rather than a cable company if they gave up pirate TV?
Do they consider people that use rabbit ears antenne to be using 'pirate tv'?
Article is biased a lot.
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Exactly. People who don't even own TVs or watch TV programming at all are considered "pirates" by these companies.
From their article.... (Score:5, Insightful)
My conclusion: Charge fair prices, instead of soaking everyone while you can, and while the market will tolerate it. When the cost and inconvenience of replacing cable with internet alternatives and OTA (Digital antenna) becomes less of a deciding factor, more viewers will do so. Also, the younger generation wants portable media, not one bound to the cable box at home.
Make it worth it (Score:2)
But if all of those people instead purchased a legal TV package for $50 per month, that would amount to another $4.2 billion revenue a year for North American pay-TV providers, the report said.
And if we could actually get TV packages for $50, that would be great. When you factor in fees for "equipment rentals", charges for extra TVs, fee/taxes, and all the other BS, and you are at $100 a month for a package that has the channels you actually want to watch (and about 100 more channels you never even touch).
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Too Much (Score:3, Insightful)
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Their estimate is based on $50/mo. or $600 per year. I wouldn't call it way overcharging - just that they're selling more than I want to buy.
The fact is, most companies charge way more than $50/mo. too.
What was that (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't get higher cap without pay TV (Score:2)
Pirate companies like Netflex, Amazon Prime, or Hulu no longer require you to have entire packages with the cable company
You're right. It's the cable company that requires purchase of an entire TV package before it's willing to sell you a home Internet subscription with a large enough monthly Internet data transfer volume allowance to make Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu worthwhile.
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Cable Cutters Untie!!! and Snip!!
Apropos typo :) Untie indeed!
For science and a friend (Score:1)
Where does one find one of these Pirate TV services, asking for a friend? Second of all, why would I pay a Pirate TV service money, doesn't that defeat the purpose of Yar, being a pirate?
Also, please, name a legal cable/satellite company with a package that costs $50. By that I mean a package that consists of more than 10 channels (most of which are FOTA channels), doesn't charge per tv (otherwise we need to factor in the outlet fees), and doesn't require you to sign a contract so they can stick it to you a
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This is linked from the article:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IPTV/... [reddit.com]
Also, please, name a legal cable/satellite company with a package that costs $50.
I think they were underestimating to prove their point. Wrong conclusion, but nice big number.
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Offer me what I want or you get NOTHING (Score:2)
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Now they get ZERO from me for TV.
Unless you're in a Comcast area - any content licensed to Netflix from the NBCUniversal catalog makes Comcast money.
If physical media weren't so expensive, I would almost prefer to go that route. For those few good shows, $20-40/yr. is much cheaper than $50-100/mo. Digital copies are never discounted at the scale of physical media. Wait until a show has been out for a few years and you can really get a deal.
For now, most of the content I watch is free OTA and Netflix.
2 guesses (Score:1)
Hey, you know what else is taking a bite out of cable company revenues?
Desktop Linux!
AMIRIGHT?
The great equalizer (Score:3)
Piracy levels the forces of regulation in any industry. Anyone that sells products that can be pirated or knocked off, knows this well. Its not a fun market force to play against as a business. The reality is that the market will always win. Netflix and HULU are products of these market forces playing out.
--
"Beam me up Scotty" - Captain Kirk
Bullshit ... (Score:1)
Stupid fucking anti-piracy math:
So, if all of the people spending $10/month suddenly spent $50/month ... no, no, no. It simply doesn't work that way.
The cable and copyright cartels don't get to multiply things that are actually spent with what the differe
Not all Non-subscribers are pirates (Score:3)
media to garbage ratio (Score:5, Insightful)
A $50.00 cable package includes a ton of additional commercials. At this point it looks pretty close to 50:50 media/interruptions. I suppose all the sponsor breaks might be useful if your in the market for fast-food, trial lawyers and medication (with miles of scary side effects)
Honestly, I would consider buying back into a cable sub if they did away with all of the commercials. As it stands, cable subs are inferior products at half the asking rate on account of the commercials alone. No wonder everybody pirates like crazy.
I'd rather read a book.
Re:media to garbage ratio (Score:5, Insightful)
A $50.00 cable package includes a ton of additional commercials. At this point it looks pretty close to 50:50 media/interruptions. I suppose all the sponsor breaks might be useful if your in the market for fast-food, trial lawyers and medication (with miles of scary side effects)
Honestly, I would consider buying back into a cable sub if they did away with all of the commercials. As it stands, cable subs are inferior products at half the asking rate on account of the commercials alone. No wonder everybody pirates like crazy.
I'd rather read a book.
This exactly. I'd be on cable like white on rice if they'd get rid of the damn commercials and make it as easy to use as kodi type systems. I'd even pay more than cable costs now for that.
It's not just that pirates are cheap, it's that alternative services are superior.
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I'd be on cable like white on rice if they'd get rid of the damn commercials
The commercials come from the content provider, not Comcast. The content provider can sell Comcast "local avails" into which Comcast can insert local advertising, but if Comcast didn't use those slots they'll be ads from the content provider anyway.
Blaming Comcast for the ads is like blaming Santa Clause for snow.
I'd even pay more than cable costs now for that.
I doubt that most people would.
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Regardless of where they come from, the commercials drastically lower the value.... to the tune of about 50%
Offer me commercial free packages, or subsidize MY BILL off of the ad revenue. but don't try to sell me commercials with media breaks and complain when I find a better to way to consume the media.
To put it another way, if I'm paying for access to your network, and you turn around and rent my eyeballs to 3rd parties for 50% of the time I'm using it, don't get all bent when I stop paying for half a prod
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Offer me commercial free packages, or subsidize MY BILL off of the ad revenue.
Guess what? They already do. Just like print media is subsidized by ad revenue.
To put it another way, if I'm paying for access to your network, and you turn around and rent my eyeballs to 3rd parties for 50% of the time I'm using it,
You're back to blaming the cable company instead of the content provider. The cable company is not putting in anywhere close to 50% ads, and they aren't creating the ad breaks when they do get a local avail, they're using an existing ad time.
It's the content provider that determines how many ads there are.
Change or die.
The cable company cannot change the number of ads you see on a program served via cable. What would they replace them with,
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I see what your saying, but I think your missing my point.
I'm blaming the cable companies for CHARGING so much for the commercials. Not the commercials themselves. There is not enough value in the product they are selling (re-transmitting?) for the price they are charging.
The garbage:media ratio is out of their control, so be it. The price on the other hand... is not. I see cable companies complaining about losing their customer base to alternatives, but at the end of the day, SOMEBODY is charging far to mu
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This exactly. I'd be on cable like white on rice if they'd get rid of the damn commercials and make it as easy to use as kodi type systems.
So, what's a good kodi type system to check out? Asking for a friend ...
Zero point zero. (Score:2)
What is "...how many people using pirate services would purchase a traditional cable or satellite TV package if the piracy option didn't exist", Alex.
Less than one in 15 households with broadband ... (Score:3)
Pirate TV Services Are Taking a Bite Out of Cable Company Revenue ... TV piracy services are being used by about 6.5 percent of North American households with broadband access, potentially costing legitimate TV providers billions of dollars a year, ...
Less than one in 15 North American households with broadband access subscribe to a TV piracy service.
FTFY
Of course that means there's a vast, untapped, market for TV piracy services. If everybody with cable or satellite TV service switched to a piracy service (and dropped their high-priced "legal TV package") that WOULD cost them billions.
"Quick: We've got to block the rollout of cheap broadband Internet! (Oh, wait. We already did that.)"
Too bad MOBDRO's not available for Roku. (Score:1)
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You could probably cast to roku.
Assumption is the mother of all fuckups. (Score:2)
>We don't know how many people using pirate services would purchase a traditional cable or satellite TV package if the piracy option didn't exist.
>But if all of those people instead purchased a legal TV package
So, they admit they have no idea how many of those would convert if they had to, then they go on to assume 'all of them'. Which is a number that NO research on the subject has EVER supported. In fact, most research suggests 'very few of them' as the right number.
How can I get paid to write analy
Disagree (Score:2)
For decades the music and video industry has claimed that copyright violations are costing them untold millions in sales. This has never been proven. There's no proof that a person copying a song or a video would have purchased anything.
A recent report that the industries hid said that copyright violation had no impact on the industries in question.
Please stop repeating what the industry is parroting.
And here I thought it was NFL fees (Score:1)
Look, HDTV works perfectly fine. Just get an HDTV antenna on Amazon for less than $50 and you can pick up 100 HD 1080p, HD 720p, and SD signals.
The reason they're going broke is they keep paying for the NFL that we don't want.
Perfectly happy using the HD Telmundo and Univision broadcasts and turning on SAP to listen to the English version, thanks. It's built into your set.
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Just get an HDTV antenna on Amazon for less than $50 and you can pick up 100 HD 1080p, HD 720p, and SD signals.
I'm glad you live in a good coverage area. Not everybody does.
The reason they're going broke is they keep paying for the NFL that we don't want.
Many people do. I would bet that more people want NFL than want the limited services you would want to pay for. The premise is that people who pay for NFL don't want to watch other things that other people pay for. Everyone's money goes into a big pot and buys programming. That's just like everyone's income tax dollars go into a big pot and some of it goes to pay for X and some goes for Y...
Perfectly happy using the HD Telmundo and Univision broadcasts and turning on SAP to listen to the English version, thanks. It's built into your set.
Not if you don't have a broadcaster transmitting a Univ
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Many people do. I would bet that more people want NFL than want the limited services you would want to pay for.
All the cablecos have to do to make up this missing revenue from "pirate" services is to jack up the prices for the sports fans. The sports addicts will pay anything to keep their sports programming.
Cry me a river (Score:2)
Cable bundles are made in a way to force people to get 2-3 packages to watch their shows. Even if some Cable providers offer a-la-carte packages, they are way too pricy. In Canada the TV providers have to provide a 25$/month package. But you still have to rent a box for each TV, not all channels can be added, so it still comes out to 50$/month.
Years ago I setup an external antenna, put a ATSC tuner in my BeyondTV machine, and hooked up all my HDTVs to the antenna. Don't have to rent anything, digital decode
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Years ago I setup an external antenna, put a ATSC tuner in my BeyondTV machine, and hooked up all my HDTVs to the antenna. Don't have to rent anything, digital decoder for the old TV cost me 20$ on eBay, antenna was given to me. All I had to buy was a mast and the hardware to install it. Total cost was under 100$. total cost is 0$/month and I don't have to mess with unstable cable boxes.
It also continues to work after local power is lost do to the storm.
Pirate services (Score:2)
I used to use one. But there are only so many sea shanties that I can tolerate.
Basic Cord Cut (Score:2)
purchased a legal TV package for $50 per month (Score:2)
So ... (Score:2)
Arr! Pirates! (Score:2)
Who started this pirate meme? I kind of see companies portray people stealing their services as vicious criminals but labeling them as pirates doesn't quite work. Most people's education comes from pirates as portrayed in the movies, this Halloween had several Capt Jack Sparrow costumes. Though in real life pirates were the kind you would never want to encounter even back in the days.
So when media companies complain about "pirates" stealing all their stuff, it seems the opposite happens and many people wa
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There's no such thing as "intellectual property."
I imagine the IP lawyers earning large amounts of money would disagree.