Global Mode’s demise immediately impacts nearly 170,000

About 169,500 New Zealand adults will be directly affected by the pending shutdown of Global Mode services which give people access to overseas media content.

Sky TV, TVNZ, MediaWorks and Lightbox owner Spark brought a High Court Action against the CallPlus (owner of Orcon and Slingshot) over their Global Mode service, available to all customers of its ISP services, which made it easier to access BBC iPlayer, Netflix US and other offshore content services usually geo-blocked to New Zealanders.

 

Sky announced on June 24 a settlement had been reached and Global Mode service would not be available in New Zealand from September 1 this year.

 

A Horizon Research survey of 1,486 adults nationwide in April found

 

• 8.4% of respondents overall said they had used Global Mode – equivalent to 268,700 New Zealanders 18+.  5.3% (169,500 people) were using it at the time of the survey and 3.1% (99,200 people) had used it in the past but were not currently using it.
• 92.1% of respondents said they thought New Zealanders should be able to access offshore streaming websites without being restricted by "geo-blocking".  That is equivalent to 2,946,300 New Zealanders 18+.  However, only
• 22.2% (710,200 New Zealanders 18+) say that this access should be “under all circumstances” (i.e. regardless of media company commercial or other arrangements and irrespective of whether it is legal).  29.6% (946,900 New Zealanders 18+) say New Zealanders should be able to access offshore streaming websites without being restricted by "geo-blocking" provided it is legal.  So there is strong support for not being restricted from accessing offshore streaming services.

 

 

In your view, should New Zealanders be able to access offshore streaming websites without being restricted by "geo-blocking"?

Please select all that apply

A. Not under any circumstances 3.5% B. No, not if New Zealand organisations already have exclusive local (New Zealand) rights to programming 9.2% C. Yes, but only for content that is not available in New Zealand 15.9% D. Yes, if it is cheaper for New Zealanders to access content from overseas organisations than from New Zealand organisations 14.2% E. Yes, if it enables New Zealanders to see programmes or movies sooner 10.2% F. Yes, provided it is legal 29.6% G. Yes, under all circumstances 22.2% H. I'm not sure 19.5%

 

·         Note that 14% (454,300) say that New Zealanders should be able to access offshore streaming websites without being restricted by "geo-blocking" if New Zealand pricing is not competitive and 508,600 (15.9%) do not think that they should be restricted by geo-blocking for content that is not available in New Zealand.

·         A further 10.2% (326,300) want to see programmes or movies “sooner” and think that geo-blocking should not be used to impede that.

 

Slingshot and Orcon users were the most likely to think the legal action would have an effect on their use of Sky, MediaWorks, TVNZ or Spark channels.  Most concerning for Spark would probably be the 12% of their users (home use) who say they are less likely to use the services of the media companies in future.  That’s around 152,300 people.

 

Detailed tables of results can be downloaded here covering

 

• the legal action’s potential impact on future use of the companies behind the legal action, and
• the views held by adults subscribing to content services, like Sky and Netflix.

You are welcome to comment on this issue on Facebook.

For further information please contact

Grant McInman

Manager

Horizon Research

E-mail: gmcinman@horizonresearch.co.nz

Telephone: +64 21 076 2040

 

To be heard you're welcome to join the HorizonPoll research panel.