The Soap Opera Pirates

When you think of media piracy, your mind might go to Hollywood movies on shady websites or torrents, or sporting events where illegal rebroadcasters sometimes end up in jail or bankrupted by private prosecutions. But there is another kind of piracy that poses a real headache for global broadcasters: content aimed at diaspora audiences.

These audiences are largely linear. They want to be reminded of home — watching the same shows as their families and staying in touch with the local news. The viewers are often older and frequently female. In many households around the world, the pirated material is not the latest blockbuster or the World Cup, but the Pinoy teleserye, the Chinese variety show, or the Indonesian sinetron. These shows serve as a vital touchstone for people who miss their homelands, their families. Being able to watch them at the same time as others makes the world feel a bit smaller.

This form of piracy, delivered through IPTV networks sold within diaspora communities (sometimes so openly that many consumers do not realise it is illegal), grows out of a difficult scenario. Rights windows, technical barriers and simple lack of awareness make creating legitimate access routes tricky or even impossible.

The Rise of Informal Access

In the pre-digital era, as pay TV expanded, networks began setting up specifically for communities abroad. ABS CBN’s The Filipino Channel and the now-defunct JSTV for Japanese speakers were created for those living overseas. ZEE in India grew its presence in parallel at home and abroad.

As the market evolved, so did expectations. In Europe it became a familiar sight: satellite dishes pointed in different directions as emigrants brought their own equipment, or companies built entire installer networks for people wanting television from home. Card-sharing and decryption piracy were significant problems, yet consumers were often happy to pay the original fees. After all, they were cheaper than subscribing to the local services. The arrangement existed in a grey area (particularly outside the EU): something of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” in which platforms happily took the money but did not advertise that their services were being viewed outside the territories defined by carriage rights. At the peak in the mid-2000s, countries such as Romania and Albania had far more DTH platforms than their domestic markets would suggest, almost certainly (though never openly) because of diaspora subscribers.

Barış Yiğit for Pexels

Satellite subscription portability obviously worked best when countries were close. As distances grew and technology advanced, these arrangements fell out of favour almost as quickly as they had appeared, replaced by IPTV.

Ramon Lobato of RMIT University in Melbourne has noted that illegal streaming services found an early home in minority communities. It is easy to see why. In the United States, Dish Network has long carried the most international programming (and still does, though increasingly via IP rather than satellite). Today the Hindi Mega package of 29 channels costs $54.99 a month; meanwhile a skinny package of just three popular Brazilian channels costs $34.99. That is a tough sell when an illegal IPTV service offers hundreds more channels for a fraction of the price. Second-generation young adults will often be glad to set up the cheaper option for their parents to save money and, perhaps less enthusiastically, handle the tech support.

Native Platforms Going Global

Piracy hits rights holders and programming particularly hard when much of the target audience lives outside the home market. Unlike a movie or a sporting event, the typical diaspora viewer is watching and engaging with the content – news, soap operas, talk shows – every single day. Content owners have had to pivot to avoid losing out. Diaspora viewers frequently have higher disposable income than audiences at home, and advertising CPMs are correspondingly higher.

Rights holders have responded in different ways. ZEE5 Global launched first in India but quickly expanded worldwide. ABS-CBN Corporation took the opposite route: its global ABS-CBNnow platform began in 2003 as an early example of a diaspora OTT service, and later merged with the local service iWant, unifying the domestic and international offerings.

Licensed services have also been built specifically for communities abroad — KORTV Inc. for Koreans, for example, or toober TV, which aggregates content as diverse as Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew and French. YuppTV Inc., founded in Atlanta to serve South Asian communities overseas, has even entered the Indian market itself and become a significant player there.

Piracy is no longer an inevitability among diaspora audiences, but concern remains. The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy took action in 2022 against iStar IPTV, an illegal service carrying Arabic-language networks, and succeeded in shutting it down with a hefty financial penalty.

Piracy is Still A Problem

But the pirates remain nimble. What was once a world of boxes and sideloading is now often a fully online transaction, with accounts sold on Facebook Marketplace or via Telegram. For the consumer these pirated IPTV services are inexpensive and offer wide choice. If it's easy and cheap, they'll pay for it. The same needs to be true for official, licensed services.

Content owners have a responsibility and the will to defend their rights and remove infringing material, but they also have a duty to provide a good legitimate alternative. Diaspora communities can be highly lucrative and should not be overlooked. ZipWave Media has helped television networks reach viewers overseas. If there is anything you think we could help with, visit zipwavetv.com and fill out the form for a free consultation.