Industry insights: The latest report on European video piracy has been released, while service stacking ceilings lead to bundling and TV screens continue to get bigger.
Online video piracy across Europe
[EUIPO]
The latest annual European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) report on online copyright infringement has been released. First published in 2019, it has since been expanded to cover data on access to pirated films, TV, and music from January 2017 to December 2023 across all 27 EU member states.
Here are some of the key findings:
- Overall piracy is stabilizing at an average 10.2 accesses per internet user per month. It grew until the end of 2021, since then the trend has been flat. Although piracy for the most important type of content (TV) shows a slight increase, this effect is counterbalanced by the decrease in piracy of other types of content, such as films.
- TV piracy in the EU stabilized in 2023 at 5.1 accesses per internet user per month, but with increasing variations across member states. Streaming remains the most common method, with significant differences across countries.
- Sports / live event piracy increased from 2021 to 2023, peaking at 0.75 accesses per user/month in October 2022. It closed 2023 at 0.53 accesses per internet user per month. The trend appears flat or slightly decreasing. Desktop devices are preferred.
- Desktop devices are used more than mobile devices for pirated TV content, accounting for around 60% of total accesses. However, the split between mobile and desktop devices varies between countries.
- Film piracy in the EU decreased by about 25% in 2023, with an average of 0.9 accesses per internet user per month. Streaming remains the dominant method, accounting for 74% of accesses, followed by torrenting. The decline in film piracy is seen across both types of devices, with desktops leading the decrease.
EUIPO has also done some fascinating economic modelling that highlights factors that either positively or negatively impact digital piracy (see below).
For live sports events piracy, the organisation admits that the positive association with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is counterintuitive because populations with higher incomes should be able to pay for legitimate service. This all helps illustrate some of the complexities at work here when it comes to uncovering piracy motivations. Some possible hypotheses that could explain this are: i) relative lower number of offers in countries with a smaller GDP per capita that would lead to little interest, ii) high demand in richer countries that push prices up which could be dissuasive for a significant proportion of the population, especially if income is unequally distributed, and iii) users in rich countries may have already moved to subscription-based products for music, films and TV and may be reluctant to add more subscriptions.
Also counterintuitive is the way that TV piracy decreases with higher youth unemployment. One possible reason for this is that unemployed young people might live with their parents who pay for TV subscriptions.
There is a wealth of data and statistics in the report, too much to cover here, so it really is well worth a read if you are interested. It is worth noting that in 2023, TV piracy stabilized around 5.2 accesses per internet user per month. However, the variations across EU member states are increasing. Of the 27 countries, nine (Bulgaria, Estonia, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Malta, Romania and Slovenia) decreased their TV piracy volume, while the remaining 18 presented higher values than 2022.
Sports and live event video piracy has been steadily increasing from an initial 12-month average of 0.41 accesses per internet user per month at the end of 2021, up to a maximum value of 0.75 in October 2022 when it started a slight decline. It closed 2023 at 0.56. In 2023, two peaks were visible in April-May and October, as well as a significant reduction of piracy in June and July, possibly because the main European soccer leagues have their summer break during those months. Greece, Hungary, Romania, Sweden and Slovakia did not experience any significant variation from 2022 to 2023; all other countries saw an increase.
Given the scale of sporting events over the summer 2024 period, and the retreat of the Paris 2024 Olympics behind a paywall, next year’s figures will be very interesting to read.
Peak stacking reached; drives move to bundling
[Deloitte]
According to Deloitte’s TMT Predictions 2025 report, the number of SVOD services consumers willing to stack on top of one another has reached its peak. The company’s research shows a steady increase in the average number of subscriptions in the European market from 1.3 in 2018 to a ceiling of 2.35 in both 2023 and 2024. In the United States, meanwhile, Deloitte’s 2024 Digital Media Trends reported that the average number of SVOD services has been steady at four since 2020.
Deloitte sees content aggregation as being at the heart of a rapidly evolving market structure. There are several different forms this can take.
Service bundling: Bundled SVOD subscriptions with pay-TV, telecom, or even different industry offerings such as financial services. Offers discounted rates compared to purchasing each service separately.
Media aggregation: Services get aggregated, most typically by selling multiple formerly disparate services at a discount relative to individual prices. This can cover exclusively video or other media too.
Permanent churn: Viewers desert SVOD for free services, with the growth of FAST being a key indicator here.
While some hope that consumers have become resigned to yearly price increases in SVOD as they were for cable in the pre-streaming era, Deloitte’s research suggests that consumer tolerance for further price increases may be reaching its limit. Almost half of US consumers polled in Q4 2023 stated that they would cancel an SVOD service if it increased in price by $5 per month.
Aggregation will be a way of mitigating this. It will also help to decrease churn as well, especially if the service bundling model takes off. Deloitte points out that while half of US consumers would be happy to trade a discount for a year-long subscription, as of the start of 2024 only 4% of SVOD contracts in the United States were for a 12-month term.
How size matters for TV set buyers
An impressive number of data points collected by Advanced TV looking at the penetration of large screens and the growth, or lack of it, in UHD services.
- Scandinavian consumers are buying sets that are widening at an average of 1.3 inches per year, while viewing distance to the screen has remained static
- Average screen size in Scandinavia is 12 greater more than in Britain
- Shipments of 80-inch+ TVs grew from 1.3 million in 2020 to 4.9. million in 2023
- The peak year for UHD deployments was 2018, though 2024 is not far behind with 61 and 51 services launching respectively
- OLED TVs, once thought to become rapidly dominant, are showing limited growth as manufacturers concentrate on the monitor market
All this is relevant because CES 2025 starts in Las Vegas on January 7 and, as ever, it is expected that TV set announcements will feature heavily at the show. Recent years have seen a trend toward larger sets, with semi-transparent, folding, and ultra-thin models all making waves. What will we see next month? Difficult to say, but greater size at a cheaper price will probably be a factor and more of the 100-inch giant screens will be on display than ever.
