Pirate TV Services Are Taking a Bite Out of Cable Company Revenue (arstechnica.co.uk)

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.

Comments

Assumptions

[MightyYar]

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.