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Free TV-Show Streaming Hurts Online Sales, Research Finds (torrentfreak.com)
New research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that online piracy is not the only worry for TV distributors. Based on Downton Abbey streaming and sales data provided by PBS, as reported by TorrentFreak, the researchers find that free legal streams can significantly reduce download sales. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that free streaming options should be banned. From the report: The researchers were able to estimate the impact in a natural experiment, since PBS was required to pull the free streams for all episodes at the same time. This means that some were streamable for more than a month, while others only for a week, or two. In addition, they had sales data for several seasons, allowing them to make an alternative comparison between years, where the streaming windows varied. In both cases, they show that free streaming cannibalizes download sales. "Our analysis in our primary specification indicates that availability in the free streaming window reduces EST sales by 8.4%. Using an alternative specification we find that free availability reduces EST sales by 9.9%," they write. The negative effect is not unexpected. However, it doesn't mean that it is wrong to offer free streaming in the long run, as there are several positive side-effects. That's where the puzzle starts to get complicated.
You don't say.
Downton Abbey is shit anyway. It's not even worth it free.
Make the first part of the first season free for streaming. Like, the first four-six episodes so you can get a taste for the show.
Is the show good? People will buy the rest.
Is the show bad? People will not give it money it does not deserve.
Win-win.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I will pay a reasonable price (*) for commercial free episodes of the shows I like. I mostly use Hulu with the commercial free option, and would pay double if they actually had more of the content out there. Now things are going to disparate services, or wholly owned services (likes individual apps from networks themselves), and all without even the option of paying for commercial free. There's no commercial free option for Sling, there's no commercial free version for PS Vue... why pay for a service and still be saddled with commercials? At the same time, iTMS style per-episode pricing adds up too quickly to make it worth it.
At the same time, neither will I illegally download someone else's IP. I don't have the right to unilaterally take that away from them just because I don't want to pay, but if they made it easier and more reasonably priced to get the content legally then it's not hard to imagine they'd be increasing their sales.
Of course, some selfish cheapskates wouldn't pay no matter how reasonable it was, but then they wouldn't be losing out on the sales from those people, either.
So yeah, I like the Walking Dead... and I will wait until next year to watch this year's episodes commercial free on Netflix. I don't care about spoilers, and I'm generally a patient person - especially when it comes to something so inconsequential as TV shows.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean that free streaming options should be banned.
WTF? Who said anything about banning? Why would anyone think the copyright holder should be forbidden to let their show be streamed?
I'm totally surprised to hear that when given a choice between free or paid, people pick the free, legal stream. I wonder how much that study cost them. I'm glad they have a crack team of scientists verifying common sense.
Did Captain Obvious get a new job? Hmm. I guess that he had enough advertising hotels, so he became Captain Obvious The Researcher. Seriously though, I think that there are many better things to research instead of wasting time and energy on things that are blatantly obvious. Of course online streaming hurts sales. Most people will watch all of the seasons of a show online instead of buying the DVD's.
Hurts online sales of what?
Sales of the thing they're also giving away for free? That seems a bit obvious.
Sales of other non-free shows? Obviously people have limited time and they're too busy watching your free show to buy your non-free show.
What's the big breakthrough here?
There's no commercial free option for Sling, there's no commercial free version for PS Vue
Would you prefer $200 per month? Because that's what Sling and the like would cost if every channel were as expensive as HBO.
why pay for a service and still be saddled with commercials?
What would the film The Wizard be without commercials for NES games?
Studies like this are completely meaningless, it would be like doing a multi-jillion dollar decades long study who's findings would seem to suggest that politicians don't always tell the truth. Why don't these research places study something meaningful, something who's results might actually benefit society, instead of constantly producing drivel that anyone with an IQ over 80 should already know. EXTRA EXTRA read all about it. Eating too much sugar can cause obesity and tooth decay. Results of multiyear government study shocks the nation!
So, who was bribed to make this one up? I stream and buy stuff on Amazon with no issues.
All I can say is *DUH*.
Why would I pay to download episodes on itunes or whatnot of the same TV shows that I can stream entirely legally for a week following the broadcast from the tv station's website? While I do have to put up with commercials, the online ads seem to be nowhere near as insufferably long or as frequent as the ads seem to be on television these days (although they are unarguably more repetitive).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Ummm, isn't this called a supply and demand free market, and hasn't this principle been known about for thousands of years?
Without the free streaming how would there be any fans? Longer term effects on combined online and offline sales over different markets would be illuminating to see.
Rounding up then a 10% loss in sales. Don't or can't ads on the free streams make up for this?
It always comes down to that balance between free vs premium.
Getting proper advertising for a free service can be a pain, especially decent, non-scummy advertisers that will pay the same as scummy advertisers do.
And now that adblocking has become more popular, free streaming seems to be on the way out. The days of free catch-up TV of the former half of this decade is unlikely to last for the latter half of it.
Of course, there is also that silly thing that some companies do where you cannot pay solely for an episode, or a series.
You NEED to subscribe to the service. This is hurting more than benefiting.
Only recently have some publishers started experimenting with allowing you to purchase a single episode or series
I can see this gaining more momentum.
Either that or a shake-up in the Advertising community to stop being MASSIVE DICKS to the people that gave them jobs. Unlikely.
I fucking hate articles that point out how some industry is loosing money because of some social attitude change or say pirating. The money doesn't just magically disappear from the world if goes into other sectors of the market whether it be more alcohol on the weekends or someone buying more food or get this, putting it into a savings account and not spending it at all.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Giving it away free hurts sales. Prostitutes could have told them this and saved a lot of research. An analogy that has even more meaning when you consider the TV distributors involved.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I have been giving my company's widgets away for free and since they have been free no one seems to want to pay for them anymore. Should I consider an alternative pricing strategy?
Talk about crocodile tears. While the streams are free to the viewer the producer is paid for them. The broadcaster streaming the content is paying a fixed licensing fee of some sort and probably percentage of the revenue from advertising they embed. Nobody is holding a pistol to the producer's head forcing them to agree to licence 'free' streaming: if they want more money for that licence then they should negotiate it with the broadcaster. If they want pay-per-view then they should neogtiate that or do it themselves.
That's what my father-in-law told my wife. I ended up buying the cow anyway.
Presumably PBS paid money for the rights to air the show, including streaming it online for a limited time. That revenue has to be offset against the reduced online sales revenues. With this methodology almost anything will reduce online sales revenue. Caveat: methodology assumed from the Torrentfreak summary not from the TFA which is paywalled.