Arcom, France’s Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communications, has released new assessments of the impact of the illicit consumption of audiovisual and sports content on the French economy and public finances.
Illegal streaming is a big issue in France. IPTV is delivered by ISPs to ‘managed’ decoding devices to 69% of French households. In addition, 17% of French households receive illegal programming through legal player devices such as Roku. A further 11% comes from distributors that have not been subject to blocking by requests from rights-holders.
Arcom found that consumers accessing illegal services were paying about €14.4 per month on average, amounting to about 29% of their media budget. About two thirds of illicit ‘IPTV’ users began doing so three years ago or less. Demographically, illegal users are younger than the general Internet-using population (35 vs 49 years old). 88% of them also subscribe to a video-on-demand or subscription TV service.
Site blocking is on the rise
Arcom reported that more than 7,000 domain names have been blocked since 2022: 1,442 after court injunctions, and another 5,571 after receiving notifications by Arcom.
In 2024 through November 25, about 1,600 domain names linked to an IPTV service were blocked. The average processing time for blocks requested by Arcom has been about 6 working days.
Site blocking appears to be effective
While Arcom estimated that piracy sites received about 7.6 million visitors in September 2024, site blocking appears to have helped reduce piracy across all of piracy’s traditional channels: Live and on-demand streaming, direct download and peer-to-peer.
Further reading
Essentials to remember. Research summary (PDF). November 28, 2024. ARCOM (in French)
Actions with real economic impact by Arcom. Sports Anti-Piracy report (Presentation-PDF). November 28, 2024. by Denis Rapone, Pauline Combredet-Blassel, Didier Wang. ARCOM (in French)
Barometer of the consumption of dematerialized cultural and sports content. Research report (PDF). November 28, 2024. ARCOM (in French)
Socio-economic impact study on the audiovisual industry and public finances of illicit online consumption. Research report (PDF). November 28, 2024. ARCOM (in French)
Illicit audiovisual consumption in IPTV. Research report (PDF). November 28, 2024. ARCOM (in French)
Why it matters
Arcom updated its evaluation of the impact of the illicit consumption of audiovisual and sports content for the French economy, within the context of profound changes in supply and demand in the sector audiovisual, and the arrival of new
actors.
While piracy is well established in France, it is trending downward. Over the first nine months of 2024, the audience for illicit live streaming was down 18% compared to 2023. Longer-term, illegal live streaming fell by 41% compared to its peak consumption in 2021, and by 30% compared with 2018.
In addition, Arcom said that more Internet users are paying for legitimate online media offerings. On the supply side of the media industry, rights-holders are increasingly collaborating against piracy. Arcom said that 14 competitions have been protected by five rights-holders since 2022.
