If we tend to believe that piracy is harmful for series, the reality is quite different. Indeed, traditional digital platforms are ultimately becoming an asset to programs.
What if illegal downloading wasn’t so bad for series? Have you ever asked yourself the question? Because, yes, online piracy, like any element of the digital ecosystem, evolves over time. It could well be that the buzz generated on certain major online platforms, such as YouTube or Twitter, is more beneficial for the series than piracy would be unfavorable to them. In any case, three South Korean researchers are convinced of this.
The life-saving advantage of series: they generate much more buzz on the networks than other content
In a very recent study, Dongyeon Kim, from the Catholic University of Korea (Bucheon), Kyuhong Park, from Inha University (Incheon) and Youngsok Bang, from Yonsei University (Seoul), started from the observation that our understanding how series piracy (TV or online) affects legal consumption remains limited. They have thus carried out research whose results lead them almost to the opposite of the initial postulate.
There is indeed a positive, even promotional, side to illegal downloading, according to the study, which mitigates the impact of piracy. On the one hand, the consumption of a series is very different from that of a film or a music title. A series is made up of episodes and will therefore often generate more buzz on the Web, which will then have beneficial effects on the wider legal consumption of the series.
In more detail, the three Korean researchers analyzed and studied the relationship between the American audience of some twenty television series (such as Lucifer, Arrow, supernatural, Blacklist and others). They also looked at engagement and search trends on Twitter, Google and YouTube as well as downloads through the BitTorrent network to get the best possible idea of the effect of the piracy on these programs.
The buzz generated by the series, an asset that comes from dilute the negative effect of hacking »
If, indeed, illegal downloads (BitTorrent) have a negative impact on TV consumption and audience, and therefore on the income generated by the series, ” the indirect effect that mediates the internet buzz is positive “, note the researchers. The buzz caused by reviews of episodes posted on YouTube and the reactions by the thousands on Twitter ” dilutes the negative effect of hacking “, they add.
Academics go even further and suggest that this counterweight to internet buzz is even stronger for less popular series on television. For them, this is even more important in the second halves of the season. This is an interesting point. If we follow the study, the buzz generated on social networks and major platforms has little effect at the start of a season, but more for the following episodes.
It must then be understood that the piracy of a series can often help to reinforce the buzz around a series, inflate its popularity and thus reach more viewers, and therefore more viewers who will consume the series via a legal channel. After all, a few years ago, one of the directors of the series Game Of Thrones pointed out that piracy contributes to creating a kind of “ cultural buzz which was able to increase the number of subscriptions to the HBO platform.
On the same subject :
The most pirated movies and series in 2021…are certainly not what you think
Sources: ScienceDirect (study), TorrentFreak
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