Mediavision has been tracking the hacking habits of citizens in the Nordic countries since 2010. The company's annual report for spring 2023, based on a survey conducted in March, has just been released.
With Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway back in the spotlight, Mediavision's pan-Nordic consumer survey aims to measure consumption of unlicensed content among respondents aged 15-74, in categories including movies and shows television, and access to both through pirates. IPTV services.
General increase in piracy rates
With no obviously positive news to distract, the bad numbers in all four countries take center stage.
Denmark, a country with an overall movie and TV show piracy rate of 11% in 2014, now has an overall rate of 20%, up from 13% reported in the Mediavision survey in 2022.
With an overall rate of just 8% in 2014, increases over the years led to an overall rate of 13% for Finland in 2022. A four-point increase in the last 12 months brings the overall piracy rate to Finnish movies and TV shows at 17%.
Since 2014, the overall unlicensed consumption of movies and TV shows, in both Norway and Sweden, has taken a U-shaped curve. With declining piracy rates indicating signs of progress in the medium, high rates of piracy observed in 2014 are shown again in 2022, and something else.
Overall movie and TV show piracy rates for Norway now sit at 22% from 18% last year, with Sweden at 25% and 20% respectively. Mediavision reports that in all four countries, the usual suspects are driving the increases.
Young people drive piracy
Tech-savvy and content-hungry, young people often make a disproportionate contribution to piracy rates. Through various programs, rights holders have reached out to children of all ages, hoping to foster negative attitudes towards piracy from an early stage.
Of kindergarten copyright classes in the United States, to a current project in Denmark that pay teens to help with the hacking investigation, most things have been proven.
The latest Mediavision study reveals that increases in piracy are being driven by young people in the 15-24 age group, across all four countries. The concern for rights holders lies in the monthly scope of piracy, which was unacceptably high last year and is now considerably worse.
According to last year's report, 29% of young Danes engaged in pirated movies or TV shows. The latest figures show a jump to 46%, a figure that puts Denmark on an equal footing with Finland, where rates rose to 46% from 27% reported last year.
Norway's rise, from 38% last year to 51% this year, is slightly less pronounced, leaving Sweden with the surprising advantage.
The eight percentage point increase attributed to young Swedes in this year's survey is less than any of their regional neighbors. Unfortunately, Sweden's latest set of results in 2022 indicated that 45% of its youth engaged in hacking, a figure that has now risen to 53%. That suggests that one in two young people in Sweden today is a pirate.
Access to Pirated IPTV Services
Mediavision's spring 2022 survey found that in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, just under 0.9 million households subscribed to an illegal IPTV service.
With the largest population, Sweden accounted for more than 40% (380,000) of IPTV-equipped households in the entire region. With 230,000 subscribing households, Norway came in second, with Finland (155,000) and Denmark (125,000) taking the remaining places. Taking population into account, Norway's 10% share surpassed Sweden's 9% and came in second.
Following the release of these figures last year, entertainment companies warned that the use of pirated IPTV services was on the rise in the Nordic region. According to the latest survey, the prediction was accurate.
The latest figure of 1,150,000 households represents a 29% increase over the 890,000 households reported in 2022. With 490,000 and 255,000 households respectively, Sweden and Norway are the top IPTV consumers by volume, pushing Denmark (220,000 ) and Finland (190,000) to third place. and fourth place. By participation, Sweden and Norway tie with 11% each, leaving Denmark (9%) and Finland (7%) to complete the set.
And now the good news
In contrast to the bleak picture that the latest survey paints, other recent reports published by Mediavision point to positive trends in the consumption of legal content.
โOnline video in Finland is on the rise. During this spring, households subscribed to SVOD have exceeded 1.5 million, which corresponds to a penetration of 61 percent. This equates to an 8 percent annual growth in subscriber households.โ company notes.
In Sweden, where piracy habits are on the rise, legal consumption is heading in the same direction.
โToday, more than 90 percent of households in Sweden pay for some kind of media subscription,โ another Mediavision report begins. Despite rising interest rates, inflation and heightened financial anxiety, there are no signs of a slowdown in paid media.
โBy contrast, the latest analysis from Mediavision measures a new record level for total household media spend. Households are the ones that pay the most for TV and streaming subscriptionsโ, Mediavision reports.
Denmark's situation also looks less bleak than its piracy rates suggest. After adding half a million in 2022, there are now more than four million paid VOD subscriptions in Denmark, out of a total population of less than six million.
Mediavision also notes that around three million subscriptions in the Nordic countries are shared accounts, paid for by the subscriber but enjoyed for free by others. With more crackdowns on the exchange looming on the horizon, the question is whether the legal platforms or the pirate sites can reap the most profit.
Mediavision's Nordic Piracy Report 2023 is available at TTVK (pdf)
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