diff --git a/tools/generate-tempest-plugins-list.py b/tools/generate-tempest-plugins-list.py
index 4eb78fb..3772774 100644
--- a/tools/generate-tempest-plugins-list.py
+++ b/tools/generate-tempest-plugins-list.py
@@ -74,7 +74,8 @@
 # Gerrit prepends 4 garbage octets to the JSON, in order to counter
 # cross-site scripting attacks.  Therefore we must discard it so the
 # json library won't choke.
-projects = sorted(filter(is_in_openstack_namespace, json.loads(r.read()[4:])))
+content = r.read().decode('utf-8')[4:]
+projects = sorted(filter(is_in_openstack_namespace, json.loads(content)))
 
 # Retrieve projects having no deb, puppet, ui or spec namespace as those
 # namespaces do not contains tempest plugins.