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TV Show Piracy Soars After CBS Blackout
TorrentFreak reports that piracy rates of the television show Under the Dome shot up by more than a third last weekend, even though official ratings dropped. What caused the increase? On Friday, three million subscribers to Time Warner's cable TV service lost access to CBS programming, the network on which Under the Dome airs. The article says this provides compelling evidence that the availability of a show is a key factor in the decision to pirate it.
"To find out whether download rates in the affected markets increased, we monitored U.S. BitTorrent downloads of last week's episode as well as the one that aired this Monday following the blackout. The data from these two samples show that in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Pittsburgh, relatively more people downloaded the latest episode, an indication that customers are turning to unauthorized channels to get the show. With hundreds of thousands of downloads Under The Dome is one of the most pirated TV-shows at the moment. Of all sampled downloaders in the U.S. 10.9% came from the blackout regions for last week's episode, and this increased to 14.6% for Monday's episode, a 34% increase. In New York City, one of the largest affected markets, the relative piracy rate more than doubled from 1.3% of all U.S. downloads last week to 3% for the episode that aired after the blackout."
Is that you can get that night's episode hours before it airs on CBS, without commercials. I'm not sure where else it's airing (maybe Canada) that shows it early.
This means that those "new" pirates had the capacity to pirate all along, but chose not to.
People are quite willing to pay for services such as television, but given the absence of legal means to do so, they will turn to illegal means.
Increase the legal avenues to access media and piracy will decrease accordingly.
This signature is false.
Another reason the torrent numbers probably wen up is that CBS also blocked TW customers from accessing their shows from the CBS website. If a TW customer went to the CBS website to try and watch a show, they weren't able to. So any money they could have made from that was gone as well. So really, CBS actually pushed people who would go through the next legitimate channel further down the line. Sure, they could possibly buy it from Amazon or iTunes, but at a dollar per show, that is a pretty hefty price for a show you will watch once and then delete.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Avast ye buccaneers! They've cut ourrr access! Batten down the hatches and farrrrr up the bittorrent! We be settin' sail for the commercial-free waters of internet piracy, global warmin' be damned! Yarrr!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Most of these shows can be watched legitimately at cbs.com, but CBS is currently blocking anybody with a TimeWarner Cable IP address.
Still no news on whether or not large mammals defecate in forested areas?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What do you expect?
Let's face it, for most people simply turning on the TV is more convenient than downloading a show and then figuring out a way how to watch it sensibly on their computer equipment. They easily and willingly accept ads as the price for that convenience. Remember that they're not technical people like most on here, they want something that "just works", and they don't consider watching shows on their computer or connecting it to a TV very convenient.
But if they have a favorite show, especially if it's a show that spans a longer story arc and doesn't just consist of self contained episodes, they will go that extra mile to compensate if their cable provider drops the ball. And no, you may rest assured that they're not happy about it, far from it. It was most likely a hassle for them to get that show, they had quite a bit of "expense" (in terms of time and 'nerves') to get their show back.
It's actually even likely that they will not continue this policy despite the ads. It's simply more convenient for them to just switch on the TV, grab a box of chips and sprawl out on the couch rather than tinkering and toying with the computer to get that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The sad part is that "Under the Dome" really does SUCK. I am hooked and want to know what is happening, but the whole "drama" part is so horrible, I am fast forwarding through at least half of each show now.
And no, I don't pirate the video, it is on Cox.
In spite of all their wailing about piracy, they know as well as the rest of us that the goal isn't to eliminate piracy, it's to maximize profits. Giving it away to everyone legally does them less good than ignoring a small amount of piracy and guilting the rest of us into paying for it.
I don't have a magnet link, but I do have an HTTP link. Perhaps someone's HTTPS Everywhere rules have fallen out of sync.
It's pirating because current law requires you to make your own copy from the signal received over the air (Sony v. Universal), not through an unauthorized Internet transmission (UMG v. MP3.com). The resulting copies are indistinguishable other than that making one is an infringement and making the other is not.
Pre-1996:
TV Stations: Broadcast all day long... what's that, Cable company?
Cable company (10% of TV viewers): We are going to carry your station in our market, bringing you to some new viewers.
TV Stations: (SHRUG) OK, go for it. More viewers means more ratings! More ratings means more advertising revenue!
1996:
Federal Government: Here you go, Broadcast stations, you can now demand payment for being carried on a cable provider! with The Telecommunications Act of 1996
Cable Companies: WTF?
Federal Government: The free ride is over
TV Stations: Hmmmm... free money, we like that!
Post-1996:
TV Stations: GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!
Cable Companies: It's not worth THAT much for us to caryr you. How about we start whittling down the network affiliates to a single, small local-market station
(time passes)
TV Stations: Our ratings our down, we are losing ratings to cable stations - it's all the cable company's fault! Raise the rates!!
Cable Companies (now 95% of the viewers): Geez, not this again, this is ridiculous, we're outta here. Goodbye, CBS.
(Sometime in the next decade):
TV Stations: Where did all our viewers go? Doesn't anybody have antennas? Why does the FCC want to narrow the broadcast spectrum to "auction valuable unused frequencies"? Hey Cable Company, want to carry us at a slightly discounted rate?
Cable Companies: (Chirp Chirp Chirp)
----------- At least that's the way I see it. Where does CBS think those viewers will come from? Will they magically sprout an ATSC TV antenna out of their collective asses and start receiving OTA signals again? Over 90% of their viewers no longer HAVE antennas and don't care. They can PIRATE your programs and why feel guilty??!? They got the programs for "free" before.
GREED is the ultimate downfall of broadcast networks. Cable providers do OTA broadcasters a SERVICE by providing access to large numbers of viewers, which in turn incereases ratings, which, in turn, increases revenues. There was NEVER a need to double dip by demanding cable companies pay a fee.
I haven't watched tv in years, sounds like I'm not missing anything that special. CBS isn't on an overly expensive cable subscription? This makes no difference to my life whatsoever. Cable was commercial free, now they have got people used to paying for commercial tv, and I never saw the sense to that. My library has lots of DVDs of good (and bad) movies and tv shows, for when I need a fix of boob-tube viewing, which is rarer and rarer lately. Real life beckons, and I'll be damned if I'll be spending (wasting) my remaining years on this planet sitting zombie-like in front of a screen, bitching about how my cable company doesn't carry a channel that has little to offer. Breaking the tv habit is quite freeing, and I doubt I'll ever go back to that world. There's too much other great things to actually 'do' in life.
No, what they care about is how many people may watch the ads. Shows are bait to attract product (viewers) that the networks sell to their customers (advertisers). The cost of the ads are based on how many views are expected to go for the bait (watch the show) and see the ads in the process.
Now, networks would love it if they could do what you suggest, but the advertisers would not accept it. The networks are still fighting to get advertisers on board with DVR (live plus...) ratings, and trying hard to get any real money at all out of online streaming ads. Counting pirated downloads would also lack demographic info. Advertisers want certain demographics that fit their product and, more generally, they pay more for demographics that are harder to advertise to. Younger people watch less TV due to work, social, and family life. Older folks tend to stay home more and fewer distractions, so they are cheap and plentiful. This is why so much emphasis is put on the 18-49 and 18-34 year old viewers. You can have 12 millions viewers but if you are pulling a 1.0 in demo, you're probably getting your show canceled.
So networks can't charge more for ads it's useless to them. They don't sell online ads on pirate sites so that's also useless. Advertisers won't care because they already get much better market research currently that would be provided by looking at torrent or usenet download stats and they really don't care all that much about online ads in general (thus one of the reasons they are so damn cheap to begin with). At the same time the networks see the downloads as threatening, but not exactly for the reason most people think. Unless Nielsen families are all out pirating TV shows (odds are against that) it doesn't directly affect the ratings numbers. However, advertisers see these unauthorized downloads and begin to question the Nielsen estimates. If 5 million people downloaded a show, are the Neilson numbers off by 5 million viewers? Now, we all know this is tenuous at best, but the advertisers can use it to pressure the networks on pricing. Thus, the networks see it as a revenue threat. There are also the usual issues of "it's mine, mine!!" at play, and the false piracy economies of "we are losing zillions!" but at the core there is a real economic issue for the networks.
The other problem they have created for themselves is this reliance on the cable cash cows. These retransmission deals can be worth billions. The cable companies see any competition to their services as a threat, and losing video subscribers because the subscribers figure out it's cheaper, easier, and more flexible to pirate is not making them happy. Since cable companies pay the networks based on their subscriber base, this is making the networks unhappy too.
Worse, for the networks, is that they have painted themselves into a corner with the cable industry. They can't live without the deals anymore, not without some major financial adjustments. At the same time industry consolidation is putting more and more power into the hands of fewer and fewer companies. This TWC deal could have a huge impact on their ratings if it rolls into the fall (it won't I would imagine, but still). TWC controls the #1, #2, and quite a few of the other top 20 markets. Only about 20% of viewers across the country (at most) use over-the-air anymore. Of the rest, about half are (on average) cable subscribers (the other half being mostly satellite). That's a metric shit-ton of viewers. They have also made it virtually impossible for them to offer direct subscriptions, since cable operators are also, usually, the best game in town for internet access as well. The would not look kindly on the networks competing with them directly, and force many smaller cable only networks to sign away the ability to do so in their contracts. They should have the foresight to push for more diversity for content deliver in their markets a long time ago, but alas, all they saw was the money they could make. In the end, it is the network's own fault.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
You could read what the article is saying. They monitored and acknowledged that there was piracy, but there was a large increase the last week that correlated with the lack of a legal alternative for TW customers. That's pretty good evidence showing that sprinklers are making the sidewalk more wet. No one's saying that it doesn't rain - everyone knows it rains, that's a given, but this sprinkler theory is often debated by the big media so this provides a good example.