‘Heroes’ Producer Recognizes Benefits of BitTorrent
Written by Ernesto on July 02, 2008Half of the people who use BitTorrent do so to download TV-shows. Some episodes of popular shows such as ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’ get up to 10 million downloads. We had a chat with Jesse Alexander, the co-producer of both ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’, and asked him what his thoughts are on BitTorrent, piracy and the future of TV.
Jesse Alexander has co-produced and written for both ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’, two of the most successful TV-series today. In addition to millions of viewers on TV, both shows are are also extremely popular on BitTorrent. In fact, millions of people share a single episode and this can go on to 10 million downloads per episode.
One could argue that their availability on BitTorrent actually helped ‘Lost’ and ‘Heroes’ to build a stronger fanbase. With torrents, no-one has to miss an episode anymore which keeps the fans more engaged. So called “pirates” advertise the shows to their friends, or write about it on their blogs. Accordingly, when we asked Jesse Alexander whether he thinks that BitTorrent might have helped to reach a broader audience, he answered with a clear cut “Yes”.
Not that Jesse wants everybody to get the shows off BitTorrent, but he said that it certainly signals that there is a market for on-demand and interactive TV. “People watching shows such as Lost and Heroes on BitTorrent is the present world reality,” Jesse told TorrentFreak. TV networks have to recognize this, give their viewers more ways to interact with the shows, and find ways to generate revenue from every member of the global audience.”
“It’s the same for music artists. The reality is, people share music. Artist now make money by driving people to concerts, through community websites, and by offering exclusive events. TV networks are focusing too much on one exclusive product, instead of building a community. This is a mistake I think.”
The success of Heroes on BitTorrent didn’t pass by the cast of the show unnoticed either. “The cast and the people behind the scenes have all been talking about it,” Jesse said. As an example he mentioned last year’s promotional tour in France, where the actors were recognized by hundreds of fans, even though the show had not even premiered on TV yet.
Alexander has hit the nail on the head. This is in fact one of the main reasons why shows like ‘Heroes’ are so popular on filesharing networks. It can take up to six months after the US premiere before these shows are aired in Europe, Australia and other parts of the world. Jesse agreed that this is indeed one of the major causes of piracy. “This gap is something that is certainly going to change in the future,” he added.
Jesse went on to say that in the near future, thanks to the Internet, the viewers of TV-shows will see more interactive components and alternate realities they can participate in. The future of TV will be more international, with real interaction, and shows will be more and more integrated into the core part of an online community.
When we asked Jesse if he has ever downloaded TV-shows off BitTorrent, he told us: “I can’t confirm or deny, but I’m familiar with all kind of new technologies.” I guess we all know what he’s trying to say.
It is no surprise that Jesse is more positive towards new technologies than some others in the entertainment industry. Last week we reported on the upcoming “Pirate TV” show that he is working on, together with Matt Mason, the author of ‘The Pirate’s Dilemma’.
“Matt’s book needs to get a broader audience,” said Jesse. “We want to discuss the negative and the positive side of piracy, and place things in a broader historical context. We want to start a real conversation about the future of intellectual property.”
We’re happy to join the debate, what about you?
Previously: Court Hits BitTorrent Users Who Failed to Appear
Next: Virgin Media: ‘Absolutely No Possibility’ of Disconnecting File-Sharers
42 Responses
once all the tv execs start doing this, it’ll be full of adverts – like the itv online player
What would be the DOWN side of producing the shows on bittorrent themselves with commercials imbedded inside.. sure you can fast forward then so can TiVo.
Its better then nothing, which is what there doing now. Embrace new technology or become like the caveman, simple as that.
We have a couple of pals down under in Perth, Sydney and Brisbane who tell us awful stories for how long it takes for shows to air there after they have already been aired in the US.
Quite a few of us have discovered BSG and SGA because of torrents.
The sad part is, some of our friends who work in L.A tell us that a lot of the talent recognize this but the companies that produce content seem to have dug their heels in and wont budge… it really is sad.
They should host them on Bittorrent with ads. Possibly even have companies agree to pay so much per download for an ad included in the show.
We’d either skip the ads or if they lock us into watching them we’d continue downloading from places like thepiratebay. simple as that.
When these people start to see a market in Bittorrent, the tv shows will be filled with advertisements.
TV as it is is completely inefficient. It certainly needs to change.
If shows with embedded adds are made available online by big companies, there will always be someone who remove the ads and re-post.
i don’t watch tv, and didn’t watched before bittorent and never will.
Plenty of online content is funded completely by ad revenue, and these ads can be ignored just like TV ads can be fast forwarded. Or you can even download free software to block them completely. I don’t see why this business model can’t work for TV content as well.
What if execs charge more for product placement inside the shows. Plenty of shows and movies are already completely larded up with built-in ads, and many of them are still fun (i guess, i’m thinking only of ‘talledega nights’ here)
I can’t wait to see this show on TV (if it does make it)! It’d be fun to come home and be able to sit down and watch that for a while~
I stopped watching TV years ago now. Never will go back either.
> “If shows with embedded adds are made available online by big companies, there will always be someone who remove the ads and re-post.”
That would require reencoding the video (loosing quality) and it would take time. I’m sure most people would just download the official one and skip the commercials when they come up if they want. There will be a minority of people who will wait for the inevitable commercial-free version, but they won’t be the majority. Most people are more impatient than that.
> “What if execs charge more for product placement inside the shows. Plenty of shows and movies are already completely larded up with built-in ads, and many of them are still fun (i guess, i’m thinking only of ‘talledega nights’ here)”
I personally hate that and I know many others do too. But I’m sure other people don’t mind it.
I have a tv set downstairs but I never use it. If they offered the tv shows via internet but with ads I would greatly support it.
Instead of re-encoding, someone will come up with a player that uses a commercial-skip file. YOu just download the index from another source and away you go. MythTV does this sort of thing..
Well I am glad someone besides me sees the benefit of BT. I was starting to think I was the only one!
JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
> “Instead of re-encoding, someone will come up with a player that uses a commercial-skip file. YOu just download the index from another source and away you go. MythTV does this sort of thing..”
I didn’t think of that, you’re right. It probably wouldn’t take very long to make, either.
Just have the add poping up while your watching the show, but no brakes I could live with that.
TPB are testing SSL encryption.
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Test, report any problems.
Of course Jesse’s used bit torrent, he just confirmed it. They all do unless it’s just handed to them. I just wish they’d realize the benefits of a faster series. Already its like Days of our lives with weekly episodes, but now they need a 9 mth hiatus between seasons? That’s stagnation.
I’d do anything to avoid the ads. Why not show them prior to the show or after it, so people are not FORCED to watch them, and would only watch if they were interested in the products. More people would tune in then. Besides, you can charge whatever you want for ads, based on the bit torrent inclusive viewers if you like. No, these are not watching the ads, but you get a more accurate popularity rating on which you can base your ad time price.
I’m for finding a way that the content can be delivered ad-free, so that we can have more non-commercial entertainment in our media diets. Certainly the advertising model cannot be the only one. Perhaps it’s time to give something else a try.
All the suggestions so far seem to be where we can displace the ads to, and TBH I have even come up with an idea or two in that vein. We need a culture of arts support, more of the wealthier in our societies patronizing the arts and production, government grants for innovative new shows. This would also perhaps take some of the focus off of focus-grouped plots.
There is also the possiblity of setting up a donation based system for some of the financing.
I for one want to hear more suggestions and ideas that will help us to move away from this commercial break in the great human story.
And most of all, we need to support the shows, producers and studios that are embracing free, non-commercial distribution. They might be lower budget, lacking all the glitz and glam of network or cable tv, but if the support for their work is there then new infrastructure can be built around them. Now is the time to recreate the industry in the manner which WE choose!
In addition to the unbearable airing delays, add the fact that it’s almost impossible to see original versions of shows on TV in France, they are all dubbed in French and personally I can’t stand it.
Let’s face it, as much as we all hate adverts in the middle of shows, we need them to pay for the production.
No Adverts = No shows
Either that or cut back on ad content by 50%. 20 mins of ads with 40 min show? C’mon that turns anyone off if there’s any alternative.
I pay for TV…. no problem…
But they can shove their Crappy commercials where the sun don’t shine….!!!!
The drive home the point, Prison Break S1 started on India on July 1st this year.
Lost S4 will probably come in late august or early september.
“That would require reencoding the video (loosing quality) and it would take time.”
It’s possible to split and merge streams in mkv files, which would preserve the original datastream, but lose the adverts.
Even if there was a datastream format which didn’t split well, I think it’s possible to put metadata in the files to tell it to skip between timecodes, which means we still have to download a few megs of useless video but it’s still better than watching adverts.
Another thing that’s interesting to note, anime cappers and fansubbers tend to leave sponsor messages in videos. Obviously they’re in Japanese, and they don’t bother subbing them, but they’re basically a big logo on-screen for 5 seconds and a voice saying “Thanks sponsors” so it’s not hard to work it out.
I think if they released files with minimal advertising on bittorrent, it would be more effort than it’s worth to strip them out. Especially if they were entertaining in some way.
Todays TV is filled with entire junk. You watch maybe 15-20 mins of a show followed by 4-6 Ad-break commercials. Some of these commercials are Adult Based match making crap. It goes on and on and on and on and on and on………. its just a pile of garbage. Bittorent is a convenient way of watching your favorite show wherever you like WHENEVER you like. You dont have to put off seeing your girlfriend or studies in order to watch the things you want. I think the 2 main keywords is freedom and convenience.TV networks and film/tv producers need to realise this and reap the benefits. Im sure that are plenty of ways that you can gain revenue whilst not interrupting or disturbing that same freedom and convenience Bittorent has to offer.
if it wasn’t for piracy, I would probably not be watching those shows :P
8 Jul 03, 2008 at 00:11 by ghost
“i don’t watch tv, and didn’t watched before bittorent and never will.”
=-=-=
You forgot to mention that you’ve never used Microsoft Windows before and never will; just linux. :D
“Just have the add poping up while your watching the show, but no brakes [sic]I could live with that.”
Oh. God. No.
Keep the adverts in their own little timeslot at the beginning, end or the middle of the show, whatever, I might even watch them if it’s too short a break to be worth my while jumping out of full-screen view to fast forward.
But keep them right the fuck out of the show. I’m fucking sick of all the stuff that overlays the picture in US shows. I download Lost, and get “WATCH THIS OTHER SHOW AT 10″ plastered across the bottom of the show for half the time.
It’s nothing besides obnoxious, I don’t mind adverts when they know their place and stay out of the way, when they interfere with my watching they can go die in a fire.
Personally if I could go “legit” I would go for it for the peace of mind and to support shows I enjoy.
My biggest problem with Ads is that 99% of ads are for products I’m not interested in. If I had to register to download my tvs shows for free and legit I would. I would maybe have to enter in my top 10 interests and they could insert commercials for me specifically.
Ads for video games, cars, or whatever. I might even watch them! Not ads for tampons or dish washer soap :)
Of course I live in Canada. Here they like to delay shows. They delayed BSG season2 by over 6 months from the American channels! Idiots. Also we don’t have access to good shows because we have Canadian content laws. Which basically means we have to watch crap Canadian shows before we are “allowed” to watch American ones. UGH.
I also got sick of paying over $100 a month just to watch 5 shows….
I really can’t wait for this to happen, I don’t mind having the contents embedded with ads if they really make file sharing legal.
>I’m sure most people would just download the official one and skip the commercials when they come up if they want. There will be a minority of people who will wait for the inevitable commercial-free version, but they won’t be the majority. Most people are more impatient than that.
My suggestion is, you could download the latest episode with ads and lower grade of quality or you could wait a month or two for the ad free version.
Think about it, here comes the time for TV revolution.
That reminds me,
Check out the preair of Fringe when you get a chance. It will definately a big show. Done by J.J. Abrams – the creater of Lost and Alias.
The show.. IMO is a cross between Alias and the X-Files. I don’t know if it was a deliberate leak to gauge up and comming populatity – but who knows.
I am kind of surprised it did not make the top 10 TF tv list as it was released around the same time as the other preairs and it was huge on our site. Internal reviews – Reviewing all the up and comming shows are giving it an A-
Ads in TV shows and movies will be edited out mercilessly and ad-less fan versions released on file sharing networks.
Ads make a product worse – the TV show sponsored torrents will lose to the better ad-free fan torrents.
What could work is easy micropayments or microsubscriptions – subscribe for a minimum of 1 dollar / episode on the official site of a TV show, and you get access to their faster seeded tracker, mail notification when a new episode is out, and the knowledge that you support the series.
Offer different subsciption rates, allow people to subscibe for more than 1 dollar if they want to show stronger support, and give some goodies at some thresholds, e.g. keychain at $5/episode, T-shirt and DVD:s at $20/episode, etc.
Another possibility, allow watchers to vote for alternative plot developments, or which character to follow in next episode, and such, with text messages that you charge a few dollars for.
This way a TV show would not depend only on the opinion of a few TV company executives to survive, instead it would get direct support from its fan base (e.g. Firefly could still be alive with this kind of business model).
“The future of TV will be more international, with real interaction, and shows will be more and more integrated into the core part of an online community”
No way! TV and Tv shows sucks.Just stop downloading the shows.
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It is at http://www.28chan.org/pledge.php
What do you people think?
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Idealistically, it shouldn’t be about the money, but Jviddy is right. The producing companies behind these shows – which cost millions per episode to produce – need to find an efficient and viewer attractive way to distribute shows online or cross platform.
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