A QUARTER OF SCANDINAVIA COMMITS TV PIRACY

Optimistic reports of ever-increasing numbers of new subscribers in the country are likely to be greatly distorted, believes Erika Luszicsa of Axocom.

Television piracy does not avoid richer, or let's say more developed, countries. Swedish company Mediavision has come up with a surprising survey. It brings rather unflattering data that a quarter of the respondents in the Nordic countries commit TV piracy. In the survey, 25% of respondents aged 15 to 74 admitted to having downloaded or illegally streamed a movie, TV series or live sports broadcast at least once in the last month. In concrete numbers, this means that five million users committed piracy in one month.

The survey also reports that the number of households using illegal TV services has increased by 16 percent year-on-year. This is a total of 1.3 million households that "pay" for access to hundreds of TV services and streaming platforms.

"Piracy is a problem in the Nordic countries. Financial pressure on households combined with across-the-board price increases for legal alternatives are behind its growth," commented Natalia Borelius from Mediavision on the results.

What does this report mean for the Czech Republic? It is safe to say that the often published optimistic reports of ever increasing numbers of new subscribers in the country are likely to be highly cartoonish. On the other hand, those who have illegal access to these services are likely to be far greater in number. However, our survey last year revealed that 60% of users of streaming services share their passwords with work colleagues and friends.

Source: mediaguru.cz