Parks Associates: Report identifies trends among content-pirating consumers

Parks Associates today announced that as of Q3 2017, 12% of U.S. broadband households use a live streaming platform like Facebook Live or Periscope. The profile for live streamers is generally younger, with 19% of consumers ages 18-24 engaging in live streaming activity, but live streaming of TV shows and sports skews older, indicating more older viewers might be using these solutions to access illegal streams of content.

"Eight percent of broadband households have used live streaming apps to watch TV shows, while 7% have used live streaming apps to watch sports," said Brett Sappington, Senior Director of Research, Parks Associates. "Some sports franchises and leagues are legitimately live streaming their content, but much of the produced content on these live streaming platforms remains unsanctioned."

The research comes from Parks Associates' new industry report Pay TV, Passwords, and Piracy, which identifies trends among content-pirating consumers, details emerging streaming piracy methods, and assesses viable solutions for addressing these piracy methods.

"Over one-third of households live-streaming TV shows or sports indicate the programming was available, but they opted for live-streaming because they did not want to pay for access. Over one-quarter stated that they accessed the content via live streaming because the price of the programming was too high," Sappington said. "While these figures ultimately represent less than 5% of U.S. broadband households, they are a significant portion of those watching app-based live streams."

Additional data from the report includes:

18% of Cord Nevers indicate they use the credentials of someone outside their household to access an online video service.

Among pay-TV subscribers, only 7% indicate they use IDs and passwords for video services from people who do not live in their household.

14% of Cord Cutters use others' credentials for online video services, double the rate of use by pay-TV subscribers.

45% of U.S. broadband households are very concerned about downloading a virus or malware when downloading or streaming video.

Brett Sappington will present Parks Associates research at this year's Cable Congress in Dublin, March 6-7, and at 2018 NAB in Las Vegas, April 7-12.