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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.
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.
for not providing reasonably prices a la carte options. Or people *would* give them money.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
The number of cable and satellite TV subscriptions has been dropping for years due to rising prices and Internet-based alternatives, both legal and otherwise.
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.
V for Vendetta: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
If 6.5% of your user base not signing up is costing you over $4,200,000,000 in a single year, the issue is that you are way overcharging for your service. Your Whinging about only making $64.5 billion a year is really pulling at my heartstrings.
I think I just heard some whining noise coming from the cable..... Pirate companies like Netflex, Amazon Prime, or Hulu no longer require you to have entire packages with the cable company.... Wait, those are actually legal companies people are watching shows on now..... Cable Cutters Untie!!! and Snip!!
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.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.