Brace yourselves, pirates are coming! the effects of Game of Thrones leak on TV viewership

Abstract

Pre-release leaks of cultural content incentivise consumers to look for unauthorised sources. I find that such events not only affect the leaked titles but also carry spillover effects for other titles with a shared audience, suggesting the existence of strong switching costs associated with the illegal sources. I use a unique dataset on a sample of TV shows aired around the time of a pre-release leak of a large audience TV show (Game of Thrones). The results of a difference-in-differences analysis indicate that the leaked show lost viewership for both the leaked episodes and those that followed. More importantly, the event seems to have affected other TV shows that may share an audience with the leaked show. Finally, my results for the shows with a shared audience are corroborated by evidence of an increase in web searches for online sources of their episodes. These findings suggest that one-time events incentivising piracy can carry effects beyond the period and initial focus.