🏴☠️ Pirate Traffic Gets Pricey
The Russian advertising market on illegal video streaming services is undergoing a shift in trends. In the first half of 2026, ad placement volumes in the pirate segment grew by 4.2% year-over-year.
This marks the first increase since 2024 (for comparison, the market shrank by 5.5% the previous year). The primary driver behind this growth was an influx of users: between January and August, traffic on shadow platforms rose by roughly 10%.
This surging audience attention allowed pirate resources to raise their rates to match those of legal online cinemas—and in certain categories, even surpass them.
According to Link Agency, cost-per-thousand (CPM) rates on popular pirate platforms broke down as follows:
- Pre-roll: \~260 RUB
- Multi-roll: \~210 RUB
- Banner formats: 140–170 RUB
- Voiceover integration (per minute): 8,000 RUB
By comparison, CPM rates on legal platforms vary significantly: starting in-stream rates on “VK Video” range between 90 and 250 RUB (with an average CPM of 170–180 RUB), while the entry threshold on Rutube starts at 1,000 RUB excluding VAT.
Despite targeted price hikes, the overall share of the illegal segment in brand marketing splits continues to shrink. Digital Budget experts report a decline in budget allocation on pirate resources from 3.4% down to 2.7%.
Bookmakers remain the primary sponsor of the shadow sector, accounting for 38% of their ad spend directed to pirate platforms. Nevertheless, in the first half of 2026, traditional categories also increased their presence on illegal services, including legal online cinemas, telecom operators, travel services, retail, e-commerce, pharma companies, and transport services.
Meanwhile, the legal streaming segment continues to perform strongly. According to Telecom Daily, online cinema revenues surged by 31% in the first half of 2026, reaching 99.5 billion RUB. However, their monetization relies predominantly on subscriptions, with advertising making up only 3.3% of total revenue (3.25 billion RUB).
Market players note that pirate platforms attract brands purely through audience scale and engagement. However, partnering with them remains fraught with high reputational risks, a lack of transparent analytics, and difficulties in traffic verification.
Source: Kommersant
