According to piracy data from digital platform security specialist Irdeto tracking what kind of video content downloaders across the globe want to watch, the top genres were Drama and Adventure.

In the time period from August 2014 to August 2015, Irdeto found that dramatic titles such as House of Cards and Mad Men were the most heavily pirated, with Dramas accounting for 30 per cent of the total illegal downloads. Following Drama’s lead, Adventure titles such as Black Sails accounted for 26 per cent, Crime titles such as Homeland at 23 per cent, Action titles such as Spartacus at 10 per cent, Comedy titles such as The Big C at 9 percent and Animated at 2 per cent of total downloads tracked. Illegal downloads for Horror, Reality and Gameshows accounted for less than a per cent of all illegal downloads tracked, respectively. All titles tracked by Irdeto were classified by using the Primary Genre on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).

“Tracking piracy by genre can help content owners and distributors take advantage of unmet consumer demand and make better decisions about how to package up content and services in different regions. Piracy can inform market strategy for which content to make available, in what regions that content will be well received, how soon to release it and at what price point,” said Rory O’Connor, vice president, services, Irdeto.

Geographic Preferences

Irdeto also investigated which regions showed heavy illegal download activity within different genres. The data showed that piracy activity across all genres occurs most often in Brazil, France, Spain, the United States, Russian Federation, Australia, Italy, Canada, UK and the Netherlands, accounting for 56 per cent of total downloads worldwide.

Spain accounted for the largest percentage of illegal downloads for titles in the Drama and Crime genres, Russia for the largest percentage of illegal downloads in the Adventure and Action genres, Australia for largest percentage of illegal downloads in the Comedy genre, and the United States for the largest percentage of illegal downloads for titles in the Animated genre – albeit a low percentage overall.

“The increase in pirated TV content has caused pay TV operators to rethink the way they deliver content. We’re seeing a rise in providers offering online-only options due to customer demand for a la carte content and not wanting to pay for bundled services,” commented O’Connor. “It will be interesting to see how this continues to shape the industry in the next five years as the model shifts to a demand-driven offering.”

“The increase in pirated TV content has caused pay TV operators to rethink the way they deliver content. We’re seeing a rise in providers offering online-only options due to customer demand for a la carte content and not wanting to pay for bundled services,” commented O’Connor. “It will be interesting to see how this continues to shape the industry in the next five years as the model shifts to a demand-driven offering.”

Categories: Articles, Consumer Behaviour, Content, Markets, Piracy, Research