Study Assesses Illegal Downloads in Key Markets

LONDON: A report from Futuresource Consulting has found that 8 percent of consumers surveyed in the U.K., France, Germany and the U.S. admit to accessing pirated content from file-sharing websites.

Living With Digital: Consumer Insights into Entertainment Consumption provided respondents with a list of legal and illegitimate download sites from which to select. When focusing solely on the downloader segment, the study revealed that 15 percent of all downloaders admitted to acquiring video content illegally. France topped the charts at 25 percent. The widespread availability of pirated content is proving to be a major obstacle in the development of legitimate content platforms, the study notes.

The survey also reveals that nearly 90 percent of pay-TV subscribers in France who make additional payments to their provider are doing so for movie titles. German pay-TV subscribers came out on top for making additional payments for sport and TV shows. And British subscribers are making the most out of on-demand services; 80 percent of respondents whose package offered this service used it.

The study also explored geographic differences when it comes to watching content on a PC or laptop, with the U.K. and U.S. leading this trend. Germany, meanwhile, led the pack when it came to consumers connecting their laptops to the TV set to access Internet content, followed closely by France.

When it comes to business models for Internet content, the report reveals that of those who watched streamed or downloaded video content online, around 90 percent have never paid for news content or recently-missed TV shows, and just over half that have never paid to watch new movies. However, the survey showed that of those who have never paid, more than half answered "yes" or "maybe" when asked whether they would be willing to pay in the future. With ad-funded models gaining ground, the survey notes that less than 1 percent of respondents stopped watching a video because of a pre-roll ad, while 30 percent said ads had no impact on their online viewing habits.

"As content consumption continues to grow rapidly across the globe, driven by technological enhancements and content industry support, key to its long-term success will be the development of strong consumer propositions and business models that resonate with the target audience across all platforms,” says Alison Casey, the head of global content at Futuresource. “The next five years will be a period of major transition for the entertainment industry and there will be a significant shift in who receives a share of the profits, with a raft of digital platforms and the rise of on-demand content vying for rights and advertising revenues. The national boundaries which used to govern broadcasting are now being challenged by the global nature of the Internet, as was the case with e-commerce fifteen years ago. There is a huge appetite out there for free on-demand TV, but levels of paid-for activity are still low. In many cases, the propagation of new business models is key to the industry, with site location, navigation and unsuitable meta tagging still causing major problems for consumers; in many cases, the people we surveyed said they would watch more online content if the user interface and search facilities were improved.”