Geo-blocking has become a trend in our day-to-day encounters with content produced in foreign countries. You often get prompted with a message that the content is not available in your country or you keep on finding answers to troubleshoot Disney Plus not working.
Videos or music get restricted to being viewed or listened to in specific regions. This technique is not only used for streamers but also to restrict information.
Geo-blocking might be hard to understand since most of the content is out to get the most views to maximize profits. However, there is more to getting views and maximizing profits that makes it a necessity to restrict content geographically. Content is restricted due to other reasons.
But how does geo-blocking work? What reasons are behind content providers restricting content from other regions and allowing it to some? Is it a marketing strategy or a problem they cannot solve? What channels use geo-restriction, and what benefits or losses do they incur from this practice?
Those are among some of the questions we may have about geo-blocking that will be answered in the article.
How does Geo-blocking work?
Geo-blocking is intentionally done by streaming services providers and is not an error that needs fixing.
Geo-blocking is a specialized management technique that enables websites to restrict given content based on the location of the viewers. The viewer’s location is given off by their unique Internet Protocol address, which displays their location.
An IP address is a digital ID that identifies a user who has sent a request to access certain content from the web. The internet provider allocates it, and the IPs are unique to a certain region and, in most cases, countries. Therefore, a streaming service can choose IP addresses to allow access to a given catalog.
So, why do streaming services use geo-blocking to restrict content?
Copyright and Licensing
Streaming services must purchase rights to air content in a given country before making it available for viewing in a specific region or country. Therefore, they should not distribute their content without the distribution rights. Thus, the streaming service with the distribution rights to a region’s market is the only one allowed to distribute the content.
Market Segmentation
Streaming services can be divided into different segments that share some characteristics or to which the streaming service deems best. The different market segments may get access to different catalogs according to the demand, government regulations such as restricting illegal content or prices they wish to charge.
Another factor that may lead to a market being segmented is the language. If the content has only been produced in a certain language and no translations are to be done, the content will be available only in countries that can understand the language. This creates yet another market, as other similar characteristics continue to divide the markets.
Expected Viewership
Due to the marketing or nature of the content, the streaming service can gauge the expected viewership on regions where the content is most likely going to be popular. This will factor out other regions, and thus the streaming services won’t have to purchase comprehensive rights. But only rights for regions the show is most likely to be a success.
Cost
The licenses streaming services have to acquire come at a cost. It would make more sense to buy licenses for specific countries rather than a global license. The choice of which regions to purchase rights for entirely depends on what advantages the streaming services will get.
Competition
Getting licenses to distribute content in different regions is not as easy as it looks, as there is competition with other streaming services. With these rights, a streaming service gets exclusive rights to distribute a show in the given region. But might be beaten by another streaming service for the same show in another country.
The downside of this is that customers may subscribe to more streaming services to enjoy their favorite content. In addition, different streaming services distribute these shows in different countries.
Advertisement and Release Schedules
Popular movies may be released in different regions at different periods as a strategic plan to maximize profits. The movie or show may be released in theatres on different dates on a promotional campaign that gives way for the release of other movies.
The 90-day runtime policy that governs how soon a movie can go on streaming platforms may have the movie available in some regions before others. At the time difference between releases, viewers in one region will be geo-blocked until the show can air in their region.
Pricing
Due to the above reasons, the number of titles a streaming service has may differ across countries. This, in turn, causes the prices to differ across the regions. It would not be fair for a region whose charges are lower to access another region’s catalog at that price. Therefore, the excess titles must be geo-restricted in one area and available in another.
Conclusion
Although geo-blocking may inconvenience our choices on the content we prefer to watch, it is a necessary measure that streaming services must take to be on the right side of the law. However, it is possible to access content from your preferred region with the help of a VPN.
A VPN replaces your IP address with one from the server location, giving you access to a new catalog.