February 2023 - The Association of Commercial Television

DIGITAL CONTENT PIRACY IS ON THE RISE

Film and TV piracy increased in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to a research firm.

Digital piracy is on the rise and isn’t expected to slow down any time soon, according to a report from piracy-focused research firm MUSO that was published in Variety in early February.
In 2022, pirating films increased by about 39%, compared with 2021, while visits to piracy websites to watch TV shows rose by about 9%, the report said. Piracy is also expected to continue to rise throughout 2023.

“This trend continues to be a major issue for the industry, significantly impacting the revenues and livelihoods of all involved — particularly smaller, independent creators — and damaging the wider economy,” the report said.

In 2019, the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center reported that piracy costs the US film and TV industry between $29 billion and $71 billion, annually.
MUSO attributes the rise in piracy to a few factors, including economic pressures. In 2022, many streaming platforms, like Netflix and Disney Plus, increased their prices. Netflix also announced that it would start cracking down on password sharing after it reported losing nearly 1 million subscribers in the second quarter.

A 2019 study by the New Zealand-based Vocus Group NZ found that making content cheaper and easier to access helps stop piracy, not new laws and regulations.
“These two options were by far ahead of other options, at 57 and 48 percent respectively,” Taryn Hamilton, consumer general manager at Vocus Group NZ, said. “Punitive measures, such as prosecution for pirates and censorship of pirate sites, were only thought likely to be effective by 33 and 22 percent of people, respectively.”

For more, check out how to save money on some streaming services and how the party’s over for streaming TV.

Source: cnet.com

TV RATINGS RETURNED TO PRE-PANDEMIC LEVEL

Czech viewers spent an average of 3 hours and 25 minutes in front of the screen every day last year. This was almost the same as before the onset of the covid-19 pandemic.

The average daily television audience time (ATS) in the Czech Republic has returned to the pre-pandemic covid-19 level in 2022, according to a comparison by Atmedia, which based its data on the Czech market on ATO-Nielsen Admosphere data and also compared the development of audience in four countries in the Central European region.

At the time of the pandemic (2020-201), TV viewership was above average. Slovakia experienced a similar trend to the Czech Republic last year. However, in Hungary, viewership continued to stay on the higher side, and in contrast, in Poland it fell below the 2019 figures.

“Television viewership not only in the Czech Republic will grow to record levels in 2020 and 2021. The reason for this was, of course, the global pandemic covid-19 and the associated measures against its spread. Watching TV was one of the most frequent activities people spent time doing at home,” says Pavel Müller, Head of Research & Marketing at Atmedia.

According to him, 2022 saw a return to normal in terms of TV viewing, with people devoting a similar amount of time to watching TV as in the years before the pandemic. Last year, Czech viewers aged four and over spent an average of 3 hours and 25 minutes a day in front of their TV screens, just one minute less than in 2019. In the adult target group 15+, TV viewing averaged 3 hours and 44 minutes a day, which in turn was two minutes more than in 2019. On average, 68% of Czech TV viewers, or 6.5 million people, turned on the TV daily last year.

The situation is similar in neighbouring states. An example is Poland, where TV viewing among 15-24 year olds has fallen below 1 hour per day, as in the Czech Republic. The exception is again Hungary, where not only older age groups watched more TV last year compared to 2019, but also viewers aged 15-24, for example.

Source: mediaguru.cz

ANTI-PIRACY COALITION SHUTS DOWN FRANCE’S SECOND MOST POPULAR ILLEGAL STREAMER

Anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) says it has shut down Extreme-down, which it says is France’s second most popular illegal streaming and direct download site.

ACE said it had located the operator in Houmt Souk, Tunisia, contacted the operator who subsequently ceased operations and transferred all domains to ACE. The domains now redirect to the “Watch Legally” page on the ACE website. The service had more than 14 million visitors each month.

“Thanks to ACE’s rapidly expanding global network, we are in a better position than ever to act decisively against illegal piracy operators in all markets across the world,”

said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief of the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. “Extreme-down offered a large library of TV series and movies in French and original versions; we counted more than 40,000 movies and TV series episodes affecting ACE members. That library is now closed.”

French premium television channel providers and ACE members CANAL+ and France Televisions worked closely with ACE and local authorities on this action.

“CANAL+ Group has fought content piracy for years and, as a member of ACE, we are particularly pleased with the takedown of this notorious illegal website,” said Celine Boyer, Global Head of Content Protection at CANAL+ Group. “The elimination of this website is a massive success for the protection of rights holders in French-speaking countries.”

“The damaging effects of piracy cannot be overstated, especially for a global public service media company like ours,” said Nathalie Bobineau, Senior Vice President of International Development for France Televisions. “We applaud the efforts of ACE in their fight to defend copyright and successfully close down a piracy operation of this magnitude. ACE is currently the only organization able to give powerful and efficient support to our relentless fight against piracy worldwide, and we will continue to work with ACE to combat illegal operations that threaten legal content creators.”

Source: www.tvtechnology.com

PRIMA+ RUNS ON ITS OWN PLATFORM, IT WOULD LIKE TO HAVE 600,000 USERS, BUT IT CAN HANDLE EVEN MORE

The video service launched on Wednesday last week, the “first impression” came out last Friday and now it’s time for a few questions about the implementation and other plans. In addition, the streaming service is the first one to come up with a so-called hybrid subscription offer combining a certain amount of advertising and a cheaper subscription. With this tariff, the Prima group is here earlier than the multinational streaming services, and it additionally begins literally at zero!

We informed you in detail about the new video service and especially about its content in a report from its launch in January (link below) and also in a recent first short introduction. The ambition of Prima+ is not to compete with established global video services, but to attract a specific Czech viewer.

Our questions are answered by Josef Beneš, director of VoD Prima, and Nguyen Hung, director of online technology development.

According to you, the platform on which the Prima+ video service is built is in-house. What led you to not reach for something already established? The Czech Republic, as with anti-virus programs, is a superpower in this respect.

NH: We have strategically divided the overall platform into functional units or components, in which we have prioritized sections that we have worked on with our internal team due to synergies with our TV broadcast. But at the same time, we also developed some solutions with external suppliers. For example, mobile apps, Smart TV apps and HbbTV.

Tell us, how scalable is your platform? For example, what is the optimal range of its use in terms of the overall number of users and the number of users using it at the same time?

The platform infrastructure is built on a global cloud solution so that we can flexibly respond to current needs while thinking about future product development.

What targets do you have set in terms of audience numbers?

JB: We don’t have fixed benchmarks, but we would like to have 500,000 users in the Free version where people can watch content for free. And ideally around 100,000 paying users. We estimate these numbers based on the number of ad-free iPrima user registrations and video rentals on iPrima.cz so far.

Will Prima+ expand to other countries?

JB: Our target is the Czech market, as the Prima group also targets the Czech viewer. The website primaplus.cz will of course be available abroad as well, but the app will only be available in the Czech Republic. The formats based on the original theme of the Prima group can be played by users from all over the world. Acquisition and licensing videos can only be watched in the Czech Republic.

Where did you get your inspiration for the user interface?

JB: We looked for inspiration at home and abroad. Our goal was to offer Czech viewers a modern and user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate for every member of the family. This is where multinational streaming services in particular have high standards.

Have the defects of most current VoDs been eliminated, such as language mutations that are not visible before you watch the show, or the total number of episodes for a new series not being shown one at a time?

JB: We are working hard on the availability of the language versions and they will be available in the coming weeks. A range of original languages with subtitles combined with dubbing will be available.

For original productions, will you go the “one episode a week” route or will you occasionally release everything at once?

JB: Like other streaming services, we have a different strategy each time we deploy Prima+ Originals premium formats. Whereas with Bodyguards (Bodyguardi) and Midnight Confession (Půlnoční zpověď), you’ll be able to watch all episodes at launch, with Seven Steps to Power (Sedm schodů k moci) we’ve decided to deploy two new premiere episodes a week for a month at a time.

The original Bodyguards series (Bodyguardi) is available to watch in its entirety right from the launch of the service.

Is Prima+ coming up with something special or outright unique within the user interface? For example, will they be able to filter shows by age, sound quality, etc.?

JB: What is unique is our “recommendation” system, which will offer content based on viewership, trending shows or user preferences, for each profile separately. The content offering will also be dynamically filtered by user account, differently for Free and Paid tariffs.

You talked about family profiles. Will it be possible to create a purely children’s profile? How do you ensure that content is filtered by age? Do you use domestic age limits, including 15+ and 18+, or do you rely on foreign or American ones?

JB: Each registered user can create up to five family personalized profiles with customized content recommendations. In the next phase of the site’s development, we definitely want to focus on safe viewing of shows for the little ones and ensure that children’s profiles are set up to allow children to view safe content.

Affordable subscription packages are a strong point of the new video service, and it even has a world premiere at that! Given the number of ads being aired, though, we’d guess that there will be more than a hundred thousand people interested in the paid service…

Is there anything else about your video platform that you’d like to highlight that hasn’t come up?

JB: We would definitely like to emphasize that Prima+ is the only flexible video service on the Czech market. It allows users to consume content based on a choice of three tariffs.

The basic Free offer, which allows access to the Prima Group’s video archive of programmes, is free. Registered users will also be able to watch live broadcasts of all Czech Prima Group stations. All in SD quality and with advertising.
The extended Light offer for CZK 99 per month will also offer users previews of their favourite shows and series up to seven days before the TV broadcast, more than two thousand Czech and foreign titles and exclusive Prima+ Originals content. And all this in HD quality and with half the volume of advertising.
The Premium tariff for CZK 149 per month includes the complete offer in Full HD quality and completely ad-free.

Each registered user can also create up to five family profiles with tailored content recommendations. It is also possible to register up to five devices in the home (Smart TV or HbbTV, phone, computer or tablet), and three Prima+ streams can be watched simultaneously.

Source: televizniweb.cz

VOD COALITION MAKES PIRACY STATEMENT

The European VOD Coalition has issued a statement on the recently announced EU Commission Recommendation on Piracy of Live Content and ahead of its publication.

In the statement, it lists the following points:

1. Fighting piracy should be an important policy priority for Europe. Piracy harms every part of the European economy and hampers the competitiveness of our sector and the economic and consumer benefits we bring.

2. Existing Notice and Action procedures should be tightened to make sure pirate content is taken down immediately after being flagged. The latter is easily identifiable and, without near-real-time takedown, the economic value of our rights can be seriously damaged. This is especially true for all time-sensitive content.

3. Trusted flagger mechanisms should be expanded beyond online platforms, with the same immediate take down requirement as above.

4. The varied interpretation and application of existing tools in some Member States, such as Poland and Germany, at national level, needs to be addressed. As an example on one key tool: dynamic injunctions under Article 8(3) of the Information Society Directive are one of the most powerful tools for rights holders across the Member States.

5. Because a pirate whose operations are disrupted by the suspension of one server will rapidly cycle to another, hosting providers should be required to introduce Know-YourBusiness-Customer obligations.

6. Criteria determining the effectiveness of the Recommendation ought to be listed in an Annex accompanying the document. Over the years, our sector has built considerable expertise in analysing piracy trends, which we hope to be able to share.

7. Setting a specific period after which the EU Commission is to decide based on facts and data on whether to introduce binding rules. This would incentivise online intermediaries to put in place efficient piracy-mitigation measures in place sooner rather than later and to work better with the content sector.

The statement concludes by saying that the Coalition and its members remain available to meet and discuss any of the points raised and encourage the Commission to effectively tackle all forms of piracy.

Source: broadbandtvnews.com

DIGITAL CONTENT PIRACY IS ON THE RISE

Film and TV piracy increased in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to a research MUSO.

A 2019 study by the New Zealand-based Vocus Group NZ found that making content cheaper and easier to access helps stop piracy, not new laws and regulations.

“These two options were by far ahead of other options, at 57 and 48 percent respectively,” Taryn Hamilton, consumer general manager at Vocus Group NZ, said. “Punitive measures, such as prosecution for pirates and censorship of pirate sites, were only thought likely to be effective by 33 and 22 percent of people, respectively.”

For more, check out how to save money on some streaming services and how the party’s over for streaming TV.

Source: www.cnet.com

MEDIA FIND THEIR WAY IN THE COOKIE-FREE ERA: CASHBACK AND FIRST-PARTY DATA

Selling online advertising will soon have to do without third-party cookies. The media are therefore looking for ways to maintain or even improve the quality of ad space and make the most of it. This was discussed at the SAS meeting.

The ending of third-party cookie support and the need to focus on first-party data may bring new opportunities for publishers and online content providers to collaborate, making them more “resilient to the power of global players”. This is one of the conclusions discussed at a meeting hosted by SAS, the platform through which domestic media houses handle online advertising.

New tools for booking advertising are emerging in European countries, for different types of media – not only online, but also digital outdoor or TV. Predrag Ristić, Digital Sales Lead for Central Europe at SAS, cited the example of the UK commercial TV group ITV, which is itself creating the second largest programmatic network in the UK market, enabling it to offer its largest clients and agencies custom data in every booking. It is also a premium content creator, and thanks to its network it is not dependent on the big technology players to sell advertising. “Booking tools are owned by publishers, so they have control of the data. It’s a great opportunity for media houses to manage their ad space themselves. Their main competition is Google, not the local media players,” he explained. He added that GAMA companies (Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon) control about half of the ad space, from which they manage to pull up to 80% of the ad money.

Also, according to Rickard Ebersjo, co-founder and CEO of Adssets, a change in the market is coming because the new legislation introduces stricter conditions for the handling of personal data. “A lot of publishers are entering the market and working with data in their own ecosystems,” he mentioned. However, he also believes that publishers are undervaluing their premium inventory, which he believes is underrepresented in ecosystems. At the same time, buying ad space should not be complicated and should not fill too much time. “Still, about half of ad space management time is spent on administration,” he said. He then sent encouragement to publishers of print titles that by combining print and digital ad sales, the decline in ad revenue in print editions can be significantly reduced.

The ensuing discussion included the expected development of retail media in the Czech market (more here), which most of the panelists identified as a big financial and data opportunity.

Internet operators will then have to cope with the emerging transformation of the entire ecosystem. It is mainly caused by the discontinued or soon to be discontinued support for third-party cookies, which is forcing publishers to switch to a new way of working with first party data. The first steps in this direction have already been taken by CPEx in cooperation with Seznam.cz, which has experience in selling part of its inventory using first-party cookies. “It is already possible to buy from us on the basis of first party data and l

Source: mediaguru.cz

THE FIRST MONTH OF THIS YEAR WAS A GOOD ONE FOR NEWS STATIONS, INCREASED THEIR SHARES

The first month of this year was a good one for news stations. Both CT24 and CNN Prima News increased their shares the most year-on-year of all domestic stations.

Czech Television remained the strongest domestic TV group in the 15+ audience category in the first month of the year. It achieved an aggregate share of 32.15%. It was also the best performer in prime time 15+ and in all-day broadcasting in the 15-69 group. This is according to the official ATO-Nielsen Admosphere audience measurement data.

Both major commercial TV groups improved year-on-year. The Prima group remained just ahead of the Nova group in the 15+ audience group in all-day broadcasting at the beginning of the year. In contrast, Prima finished behind Nova in prime time 15+. The Nova group confirmed its strongest position in the 15-54 audience category (all-day and evening broadcasts) and also in prime time in 15-69.

Atmedia and Television Seznam also performed better than last January, ending this January with a 1.27% (all day, 15+).

News stations posted the highest year-on-year gains in January thanks to the coverage of the presidential election. CT24 improved its position by 1.26 percentage points compared to last January and its overall share reached 5.80% (full day, 15+). CNN Prima News improved by one percentage point year-on-year and achieved an overall share of 2.18% (full day, 15+) in January.

The overall share of Czech TV stations was affected by the closure of CT3, which will not broadcast from the beginning of January 2023.

Source: mediaguru.cz

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ADOPTS ITS REPORT ON POLITICAL ADVERTISING

On February 2nd, MEPs expressed their support for the negotiating position proposed by the lead Committee IMCO thus giving the rapporteur a mandate to start the talks in trilogues. Despite welcomed amendments reinforcing the distinction between editorial content and advertising, the text presents important shortcomings for the media. The adopted definition of political advertising remains too broad; the approach endorsed in Council should be favoured moving forward.

Source: europarl.europa.eu; egta regulatory insider

TV RATINGS RETURNED TO PRE-PANDEMIC LEVEL

ANTI-PIRACY COALITION SHUTS DOWN FRANCE’S SECOND MOST POPULAR ILLEGAL STREAMER

PRIMA+ RUNS ON ITS OWN PLATFORM, IT WOULD LIKE TO HAVE 600,000 USERS, BUT IT CAN HANDLE EVEN MORE

VOD COALITION MAKES PIRACY STATEMENT

MEDIA FIND THEIR WAY IN THE COOKIE-FREE ERA: CASHBACK AND FIRST-PARTY DATA

THE FIRST MONTH OF THIS YEAR WAS A GOOD ONE FOR NEWS STATIONS, INCREASED THEIR SHARES

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ADOPTS ITS REPORT ON POLITICAL ADVERTISING

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