Unfortunately there’s no data of the downloading behavior of non-Americans. It is likely that these figures are even higher outside the US, where the popular TV-shows debut months after they first aired in the US.
Younger Americans are driving growth in many digital video activities, including TV show downloading, according to the Ipsos study (via slyck).
Ten percent of young adults aged 18 to 34 (14% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 7% of 25- to 34-year-olds) have downloaded television programs from the Internet and seven percent have done so in the past month—nearly double the rate of television downloading overall.
But it seems like TV and Movie producers can’t live without these Pirates. A recent study has shown that most of these Pirates are in fact inspiring and creating new business models. In line with these findings, Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC television group admitted that she was “inspired” after seeing a pirated copy of the hit-show “desperate housewives”. The pirated copy of this popular TV show was the main reason (besides the money) for Disney to sell their shows online.
Over the past few months more and more TV-shows end up on the web: streamable, pirated, via Itunes, or even sponsored by burgerking. And there’s no sign that this will end in the near future.
There’s a lot of experimenting going on. TV-producers are trying to find a suitable business model, and some of them are actively discussing and exploring the power of BitTorrent. There are even rumors that existing torrent sites are working out deals with TV and Movie companies.
Marc Pesce already discussed why BitTorrent and TV are perfect partners more than a year ago, and we’re getting there. Eventually
