CDSA

During the webinar “No laughing matter: pirates enjoy comedy” on Feb. 28, Synamedia and Ampere Analysis provided more details on their recently released study analyzing the impact of sports.

The study, conducted by Ampere Analysis, found the value of entertainment piracy was three times larger than sports piracy and that the fragmentation of rights across more services was now affecting piracy in the entertainment market as it had for sports.

The research also revealed that comedy was the most pirated genre of entertainment, driven by titles including the movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife and TV show Ted Lasso, with half of all pirate viewers streaming comedy illegally.

The data showed that stopping piracy of just one Hollywood major movie release could trigger revenue between $130 million and $280 million in the U.S. alone, with superhero comic book-based blockbusters representing the biggest opportunities. For a popular title like Spider Man: No Way Home, stopping piracy would result in potential revenue for a studio streaming service of more than $400 million, based on the true annual lifetime value of streaming subscribers.

During the webinar, Birgit Merkle from Synamedia’s marketing team said: “When it comes to piracy, the joke seems to be on – well on comedy,” noting that’s what the study conducted with Ampere Analysis revealed.

“The stakes are not funny at all,” she said, noting: “A staggering $21.8 billion loss in revenue is at stake and loss in piracy in entertainment alone.”

So she asked: “Who are these pirates? What are the typical profiles? What kind of genres do they fancy? Are they ready to pay?”

Synamedia had done research  on sports piracy in 2020 “about the nature of sports piracy, the demographics, the motivations and the behavior of the pirate consumers were piracy to be stopped,” Simon Brydon, senior director, security-sports, media & entertainment at Synamedia, told viewers.

The latest report, on sports and media and entertainment was based on surveys of 16,000 Internet users that were conducted in seven markets: the U.S., Germany, Italy, Brazil, India, Thailand and the U.K., he said.

Respondents were asked about their basic demographics, age, gender, household composition, education, income brackets and what existing service they had. They paid for subscription over-the-top premium channels and were asked about their awareness and usage of illegal platforms for sports, media and entertainment. They were also asked whether they paid for those illegal streaming services.

“One of the things that emerged from [the earlier] study was that many, many pirates are actually already paying for a subscription service in the household,” according to Guy Bisson, executive director and co-founder of Ampere Analysis. That was “often a traditional cable or satellite service, sometimes also a streaming service.”