Popularity of Pirated TV-Shows Still Rising
Written by Ernesto on October 04, 2009Instead of switching on the TV, several million people use BitTorrent clients to catch up with their favorite TV-shows. The leading TV-torrent distribution site EZTV has more than doubled its visitors in a year, and there is no sign that this growth will stop anytime soon.
In the US streaming sites such as Hulu offer ‘legal’ platforms to watch TV-shows online. However, in the rest of the world people have to wait for weeks or months until they can watch US TV-shows.
Most TV-show downloads come from overseas where the episodes haven’t aired yet, let alone that it can be streamed online. The only option left for these unfortunate souls is to use BitTorrent, or wait.
However, it seems that people don’t want to wait for months when they know that their favorite TV-show is out there, just a few clicks away. Indeed, at an increasing rate people have started to use BitTorrent to get their TV fix.
Traffic to the leading TV-torrent distribution site EZTV is up over 50% compared to last year. The site had more than 15 million visits in September compared to 9.2 a year earlier.
TV-torrents are particularly popular in Australia where most US TV-shows air with a delay of months or even years. EZTV is among the 300 most visited websites Down Under, and Mininova, The Pirate Bay and isoHunt are all in the top 100.
Stopping TV piracy is not that hard though. TV distribution companies should get rid of the long delays and offer streams to people outside of the US. If they can pull that off there is no doubt that the number of ‘pirated’ downloads will plunge.
Below is the list of most downloaded TV-shows on BitTorrent last week. Heroes is leading the chart with well over a million downloads in just one week.
The data for the most recent TV episodes are collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.
Most Downloads (recent episodes)
| ranking | show |
|---|---|
| torrentfreak.com | |
| 1 | Heroes |
| 2 | House M.D. |
| 3 | The Big Bang Theory |
| 4 | Entourage |
| 5 | How I Met Your Mother |
| 6 | Family Guy |
| 7 | Desperate Housewives |
| 8 | Dexter |
| 9 | Supernatural |
| 10 | Grey’s Anatomy |
Previously: EMI Tries To Hide Kids Education Anti-Piracy Objective
Next: Anti-Piracy Outfit Forces Scene Group To Apologize
95 Responses
Dexter’s Laboratory?
Make time in your busy schedule to match the networks schedule or… watch your favorite tv serial whenever you want it and never miss an episode….
Hmmmmmm, not really a tough choice is it?
firstly, I don’t have cable tv! Why pay a fortune a year for something I don’t use …
secondly, I like CSI & NCIS …
thirdly, I don’t like commercials
finally, rtorrent rocks!
need I say more?
Now WHY won’t the studios offer a 1080p download with subtitles in every language they ever need for like $5 an episode?
Without any bullshit DRM of course.
@4, its called on demand.
I have cable, but the quality of the cable is poor at best. On certain channels, there is often static, grainy picture, and lines on the screen. Why put up with poor quality, commercials, and having to watch when they say you can watch.
@5
I demand HD DRM-free downloads on release day with subs at a reasonable price. If that’s too much to ask for, I guess I’ll have to live with a 1-day delay on House episodes.
cool didnt relise big bang thorey was back on cool!
I live in Canada and I would hit the torrent sites about an hour after Dr Who & Torchwood would show on the BBC. There would always be a torrent of the show available. I would get the whole season then wait about a year or so later to get the DVD box set when it the shelves here.
@4
Because its not practical, they have employees they need to pay.
I live in the Netherlands, and it’s legal to download here, but seriously, they should understand WHY I do it.
I wont wait 4 years for some serie to show up in my country, nor will I wait that time for a movie.
I downloaded and watched the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and, JUST WHEN I FINISHED IT (1 week later to be precise), the TV was saying it would air the first few episodes in a month or so.
WTF people, see what I mean? I watched and waited for 2 seasons off episodes, and when I finish it, they show up. That’s like 6months.
Srsly, I wouldn’t download anything if it showed on the TV. That’s for sure.
I don’t even have cable or satellite anymore. I just download and watch TV shows at MY convenience. In addition, I do so completely WITHOUT any commercial interruptions.
You see, this is what people want. They want to watch what they want, when they want, as often as they want. Customers don’t like being told what to do or not to do.
Finished*
It still seems that even though Australia has made an effort to fast track the US shows to only air with a week or days difference of the original broadcast, people still seem to want to download. I guess it’s the appeal of no ads and being able to watch whenever you like.
I don’t live in Australia, I live in the United States. I prefer to get shows for free without commercials than to pay Comcast over $100 a month for them to give me crappy set top box and dispense content at their pleasure. I’ll take my dell linux box and torrents any day.
Most of you are taking about waiting for your favorite shows. Where I live there is a possibility (and a large one) that the show might never be syndicated and shown.
In NZ, YOU’LL Find a TV series swamped with adverts and has probably had clunks of the TV program chopped out to accommodate all these adverts.
A famous example years ago was blackadder. [10 minutes chopped out]
In NZ quite often we have no alternative but to download, to even see the show.
Quality Downloads on bittorrent are
the only alternative
I don’t watch TV. I don’t even download the shows, because most things on the box nowadays is god-awful. I much prefer music and reading.
@1
Exactly was I thought xD
Haha.. not Dexter’s Laboratory. Dexter – the serial killer TV show.
im dloading and watching house and now heroes
heroes im interested in but its mainly for house >=D
simply because im in the uk and i dont want to wait when there’s a torrent from America
If only the entertainment industry reliazed this is a new distribution model waiting to be exploited.
For example,just release an internet version of a program into the bittorrent universe, paid for by the discrete inclusion of some advertising (just like free to air).
Oh yeah, and as an Australain, I say our TV networks leave a lot to be desired. For example, Dexter is two years behind. The West Wing disappeared about half-way through it production run (returned years later). And don’t even get me started on how they butchered Battlestar Gallactica.
Its no surprise their popularity is still on the rise. Episode file sizes are reasonable and as broad band gets faster, they become easier to download.
On top of that more importantly, it is all about choice, and consuming stuff how you want to. I agree that when we can get streaming from the U.S with global access within reason (even if for a price), many torrents would be less needed.
I have stuff like Sky, but the main thing I hate about it, is having to purchase stuff in packs, when I really only want a few select channels. I’m considering canceling my account, because I pay for so much that I never watch and don’t want, but have to, because of package deals. Absolute bs.
If there’s one thing torrents have opened my mind to, in a positive way, is the amount of tv that is made, but never graces the U.K, and if it does, its late or is buried in a death hour slot. There’s always something cool to discover, while not waiting for tv people to make the moves.
All in all, I think torrents will always be popular, regardless of the media lies and backlash about them.
10 shows, 10 crap. Way to go!!! Only show that is worth watching in that list is big bang theory, and that is when you are on your hospital bed without anything better to do.
Sick to death of all these legal sites for media which are advertised everywhere then you decide to go and try them out only to be met with the famous
“Hello user from the uk this service is only available to people from the u.s”
“sorry this video is not available to people outside of the u.s”
“you appear to be viewing this video from outside the u.s”
“we are sorry only u.s visitors may view this”
blah blah blah blah…
every single time a new service appears which sounds too good to be true you can bet 9/10 times it’s the old their is no world outside of the usa feck off!
The cherry is on the cake today i found a parody site with 20 different spoof/parody of twitter and myspace, 8 of them was restricted to my location in the uk!!!! parody’s FFS!
they wan’t to turn 8 million of us into pirates of tv shows screw em i pay 87 quid a month for cable i will download each and every show i’ve already paid for just not had the opportunity to watch them all this way i can when i want how i want.
love pause
New Stargate is awesome, especially since i shouldnt have it for another week :)
I would easily pay a couple of dollars per show I’m interested in if I could watch it in HD on demand an hour after it’s release on TV in America.
Perhaps some sort of partnership with hardware manufacturers like MS and Sony would be a good idea. Like using a DVD/Blu Ray player, or the Xbox 360 for streaming.
whats all this talk about paying???? we’ve already paid 1 for the licence and 2 for the sky/cable package to watch the shows.
all this nonesense of paying to watch episodes we’ve missed because we can’t watch 300 shows at the same time is not our fault and personally i re-fuse to pay ANYTHING for tv shows now or ever as long as i’m paying a yearly tv licence and a cable package.
I suppose in the UK, this is one way of dodging the TV licence!
TV, on demand, 0 adverts, 0 hassle, and all for free. BLISS!
@ 24
LOL
Dexter is in that list and you call it all crap?
You pick big bang theory over fucking Dexter?
its because cable tv is pathedic.. HD cable is waaaaay over priced.. not to mention adding the dvr service to it.. i download shows because i cant afford to pay my shady cable company for the below par quality.
People still watch Heroes??
I got sick of watching tv. Damn commercials, nothing ever good on to watch. I download family guy to watch cause I love that show, as for the rest, I’ve never watched them, so I can’t say anything bad about them.
Now if only local newscasts and various documentaries on National Geographic would be in the torrents, I’d have 0 need for TV. Torrents seem to only have prime time shows on major networks, but shows on Discovery Health or National Geographic that I want I never see online. What do those of us who like documentaries do? I hate also that things are always restricted to the US on things like Hulu. And the studios wonder why we’re downloading illegally. It’s because they’re not offering the kind of quality I can get themselves to a worldwide audience!
@35
I don’t like Hulu.com. They only have a few full episodes of Family Guy, and alot of short clips, also they have advertisements once or twice in the full episodes, even though they are short, it’s still annoying as hell.
@ 5 now now remember most of the people that vist this site are not from the US and have no clue how good we have it here and on another note check your peers list and please tell me were most of them are from keep hosting the torrent sites for us in the US you 3rd world bitchs
@ 36 no and no hulu is kick ass please go back to your cave i will kill the persone that told you 3rd world bitchs about hulu
I have cable, never use it, LoL..its there for guests..I DL everything I care to watch..
But I gotta ask – How/why is it considered “Piracy” if I have tthe ability to watch it on my TV but choose to DL it instead???
It is no different than recording it to a DVR/VHS/TiVo..etc to view later…
This “Piracy” label is way outta control…
Already been said, but meh…
Where I’m from, TV shows are either:
1) MIA – don’t even end up showing.
2) Truncated – to make room for ads.
3) Pay-per-view – on top of the broadcast license I already pay for “free” shows.
4) Rubbish – especially locally-made stuff.
By downloading shows, I get to:
1) See shows I wouldn’t have had the chance to enjoy.
2) Avoid the frustration of ads.
3) Watch when I want to.
4) Watch for free – or fairly cheaply at least, since there’s still a minute cost involved with downloading (power, ‘net connection, etc).
5) Pause the show and not miss anything.
6) Watch the show again later.
Did I miss anything? Probably.
When the networks change their flawed system to one at least as good for the consumers as downloading, then I’ll consider ceasing my “copyright infringement”. Not before.
Copyright infringement – NOT the same as theft. And sometimes a damn good solution.
@ everyone who reads this…
What are your favorite TV shows?
Here are some of mine:
Band of Brothers, Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, Burn Notice, Chuck, Deadwood, Dexter, Entourage, Fringe, Heroes, Hung, Jericho, Lost, Sons Of Anarchy, Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Sopranos, True Blood, Venture Brothers.
+CSI and Prison Break :D
#12 MPAAtard has it right,
Quote,
You see, this is what people want. They want to watch what they want, when they want, as often as they want. Customers don’t like being told what to do or not to do.
Endquote.
Additionally,
I live in a country (Island) which doesn’t air these TV series on their TV network, and if they did it would be dubbed into french without subtitles, ironically the official language is english (go figure), so my only choice is to get them online. Ferkin retards.
I would love to use hulu or something like that.
The TV companies are driving me to it. Even when the shows come here, I don’t have a TV that can put them back into English— and I hate dubbing.
I wanted internet only but the best bandwidth was from a company which included a IPTV box, basic package only, what a lot of crap, pathetic sports channel, and they waste 4Meg of download bandwidth on this thing and restrict my download to .480Meg, how arse about face is that, plus they dub TCM into french where the official language is English, it’s beyond retarded this whole thing.
I agree with what #12 said.
I want to view certain documentaries and series, when I want to, in my language of choice, without Adverts.
One thing the “TV suits” don’t understand is, I HAVE CONTROL OF THE OFF BUTTON ON MY REMOTE, ferk you, and if I didn’t have internet I still wouldn’t watch the crap on TV, infact I would use my TV as an anchor but I wouldn’t impose that crap on fish either.
oh wait, there are no fish in the sea locals have eaten them all…
And, of course, the converse is true for North American Doctor Who and Torchwood fans. It’s generally months before the show airs over here, and the networks have a history of badly editing the season finales (which tend to be longer than the “normal” shows, but don’t have a longer timeslot reserved over here).
And even when it does air over here, not everybody has SyFy…
I live in Australia and our TV networks are notorious for their poor treatment of serialised TV shows and their total disregard for the viewing public.
The straw that broke the camels back for me was their absiolute butchering of Battlestar Galactica in this country. We suffered constant season interruptions, “fake” season breaks, shortened episodes to stuff more TV ads into the hour.
After that fiasco I switched fulltime to TV episode torrents. I will never watch ad infested commercial TV networks ever again.
@18 if you don’t watch TV how do you know that the shows on are horrible?
Granted, there’s a lot of fluff on TV right now, like entertainment “news” and gossip shows, reality TV, the CSIs. However, there’s also lots of excellent programming, too. If you like reading, you probably like stories. If you like stories you’d like some of the serial TV shows even more than movies. In a movie the story unfolds and concludes in no more than 3 hours, but with some of the better serial dramas on TV you have story lines that will last you over a 100 episodes spread out over multiple seasons.
I mean, I guess you could keep your snobbish attitude toward TV if you’d like, it wouldn’t bother me, but you’ll be missing out if you did.
The TV networks aren’t the ones to blame really. I live in Europe, and all the TV shows like House, Simpsons etc are aired not months but years after the initial air date. Top Gear is lagging like 4 or so seasons, as well as all the other ones. The last Prison Break season will air only after new years.
But as I said, the networks aren’t the ones to be blamed. First of all the TV shows have contracts with the networks, which don’t allow the shows to be aired by other networks, only if they have contracts with the network itself. After a certain period networks world-wide have the chance to buy the shows, BUT they are extremely expensive, so the networks abroad wait for another year or so till the price drops, thus the lag.
So the only way to watch my favorite shows is by torrents. Also I can download 720p quality, while TV networks over here are just beginning to TRY to broadcast at that quality, only certain shows or sports events.
I’m not sure I’d use a service like hulu.com over here though, I find it more convenient to download the show onto my harddrive and watch it whenever I have the time. Also you need an internet connection to stream the shows.
So to sum it up – TORRENTS RULE!
I see alot of reason why to download the TV-shows. If you live outside the US you download them because it takes way to long before they are aired. And if you live in the US, you download the TV-shows cause you can’t bear the commercials. I recently visited the US and saw Heroes when it was first aired in the US, and all the commercials destroyed the whole show!
It’s become a Monday morning ritual, wake up, and download the shows that played in America on Sunday night.
I regularly pirate Curb you Enthusiasm, The Simpsons, Californication and Mad Men.
Then my Tuesday morning to Friday morning ritual is to download the episodes of The Daily Show that played the previous night.
I hate pirating the Daily Show since it used to stream in my country (Finland) but they turned that feature off late last year for no good reason!
It is all simple. We get to watch what we want, when we want and for as long as we want and the speed of our internet connection isn’t a problem.
Step 1 Download program via torrent site.
Step 2 copy onto USB stick, or external hard drive.
Step 3 plug external HD in something like the Western digital WDTV media player http://www.cybertheater.com/western-digital-wdtv-media-player/, or wireless router http://www.popcornhour.com
Step 4 kick back and watch the program or entire series on your big fat arsed Plasma/LCD/LED tv screen on the comfort of your couch when you want and advert free.
“Stopping TV piracy is not that hard though. TV distribution companies should get rid of the long delays and offer streams to people outside of the US.”
I am not sure this is true and here is why.
1. If “offering streams to people outside of the US” means making those streams available for free, then perhaps, although such solution will basically turn all the torrent fight into an irrelevant one, since the companies would be giving series away for free anyway.
2. If offering streams means making them available for money, there are two schemes possible:
2.1 Pay per view
2.2 Pay for a subscription to the site with streams
The first method will not work. Pay per view is a bad scheme which creates scarcity in an area where there is actually redundancy.
The second method is good, some people would like to pay for a service which has a well sorted catalog. In this case the studios will be selling a service, not movies themselves, which is good. The price for the subscription, however, must be very low for this to work at all.
And of course this will not solve the “problem” of torrents, as it is. People might download less because sometimes they download things just to check them out, but with paid service a lot of people would choose not to pay and have videos on their HDD, available offline.
See how they concentrate on better things?
They waste millions to catch billions of pirates instead of investing that millions into making something legal for us to watch.
In the end, i think they are partially at fault.
@35
all the national geographic you can handle, not to mention just about everything else …
cheers from canada!
WOW, PPL DOWNLOAD TV????
OMG WHO WOULD OF THUNKED THAT???
TORRENTFREAK IS AMAZING!!!!
One important thing to me about downloading shows in torrent format is that _I_ get to choose which program i use to play the files. Usually players provided by streaming services are horrible, buggy and they don’t work the way i want them to. Also, they’re missing all the important configuration options.
If anyone cares, i use The KMPlayer with ffdshow codecs which is an awesome combination.
Well.. I haven’t watched T.V in a long time. I just can’t sit there watching T.V anymore. There seems to be more ads than shows. I’d rather watch an hour show in an hour and not 2.5 hours filled with garbage. Besides, ads today annoy the crap out of me with all their misleading social engineering crap. Poison for the mind.
hello where’s my comment?
“in the rest of the world people have to wait for weeks or months until they can watch US TV-shows”
Ernesto, you are way, way, way too optimistic. I remember when the 4400 *started* airing in Portugal. It was the same year the show was cancelled (4th season). That’s a 3-year delay.
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I Understand the Risks
There is one good thing to having to wait for a series to air in your country – you actually find out if they are going to bother commisioning another season BEFORE you waste your life watching 10+ hours of TV for nothing …
I’m fed up of watching 1 season of US TV series just to hear they get canned.
I recently moved. When having to choose between $100 for 1.5d/768u plus TV or $60 for 15d/1.5u with turbo boost that sometimes allows me to get 26mbps down in offpeak hours… I opted for the latter. I use BT and Hulu to watch every show I used to watch when I had TV.
At least most of you have the option NOT to pay for a TV subscription. Here in Denmark, you HAVE to pay if you own either a TV, a computer with internet, or a cellphone.
Fuck you, Brian Mikkelsen.
Dexter, House and Heroes ftw…
watchxonline.com – need i say more, sense i make not, still a site good.
Well yeah, duh, its easier and the price is certainly right! Who blames them!
Jess
http://www.complete-privacy.net.tc
I would say that streams isn’t good enough – companies need to offer real high quality _downloads_. People would pay for that if the quality is good enough.
Yeah I don’t get their complaint. I pay for cable tv therefore I have a legal right to the programming. I could watch the show on TV. Hit record on the DVR but why? I can download the show at my leisure and watch it. I’m not forced to waste 20 minutes per hour on unless commercials for products I’ll never buy. Just 1 format you want me to go to jail for…I should sue you for all the wasted hours on my life sitting through commercials.
the more people keep going on about “people would pay for this” no they wouldn’t and why should we
as i pointed out before we’ve already paid via cable/sky monthly were only downloading the shows that’s aired that we’ve missed
on top of that 170 quid a year for a tv licence if your in england so i think we all have already paid!
over in the usa its free to air so why would you or anyone else pay money just to get the same content in a different viewing form?
do you pay to record or tivo per episode? hell no so why should anyone pay to do the same only this time in a portable format?
Until a few months ago, I never Torrented TV. Then the cable company decided to be greedy and reduce the channels I got from 50 to the 10 or so channels I could get with an antenna(and if I got them off the antenna they would be in HD) and told me that if I wanted all the other channels back it would cost 5x more than what I was previously paying.
Well now I just torrent all of the TV that we used to watch on cable. Sure I could watch on Hulu, but if I’m going to have to use my limited-unlimited Internet to download the shows, I am going to make sure I only have to download them once.
So way to go cable company, you tryed to make me pay 5x as much, and but instead I now watch all the shows I want for free.
But I suppose unless they did not loose 80% of their customers it was a smart move on their part.
I see nothing wrong with downloading TV shows, I pay my Tv license and cable, I watch family guy and if I want to see an episode I download it as it might not be on the TV any time soon.
I only pirate TV shows because I can’t stand the excessive commercials. I have nothing against viewing a few commercials, but when an hour show is stripped down to 44 minutes, it’s just not worth it. The amount of entertainment I get is negated by the 16 minutes of agony, watching the same Old Navy ad run 3 times during one show. More annoying is the use of overlays advertising other shows during the show I’m watching, sometimes over hard-coded subtitles. When I download, I get complete seasons from DVDrips that don’t have overlays. I know, I could buy the DVD box sets, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay $60-$100 for one season of one show that aired for free to everyone else last year.
I’ll go back to paid TV service when I get the following:
• Commercials are before and after the show, not during the middle of it.
• Better targeted ads. As a grown man, I have no need for tampons, hair volumizer, sugary cereal or fabric softener. Send me ads for products I’m likely to use and I may be interested.
• Never use Overlays. I know what I’m currently watching, I know what station it’s on, and I don’t give a rat’s ass what crap show they’re pushing next.
• Re-run new shows from the current week in a later time-slot on a different night. Even with dual tuners and TiVo, shows put in conflicting time-slots force people to choose between shows. If I want to watch something on another channel, I will. If I have to wait until next season to catch what I missed, I’ll just lose interest and stop watching.
It is our hard-earned dollars that keep these stations alive. Our subscription fees, our money spent with their advertisers. We should be treated like customers. They view us more like the product, selling us in large demographic blocks to the advertisers. Since we are the product they’re really selling, the loss of value they see from piracy is exactly the same as the loss they would take from us simply not watching their shows. As long as they treat the viewers so poorly, without edited pirate video, I’d just as soon not watch any way.
TV-Shows are often dubbed extremly awfull. In my language they disgrace the original voices and the humor. Imagine that Hiro and Ando (Heroes) are talking without any japanese accent! This drives me crazy. So I just protect myself by watching the original.
Maybe they should have re-runs or streaming on the internet. Why the networks don’t do re-runs, like later in the week, always made me wonder.
For all those guys who want documentaries, like from Nat Geo or Discovery, search for “mvgroup” in the torrents. As far as I know they are the only ones that do documentary releases in the entire p2p scene.
Hope this helps someone.
@ 35 Ever hear of MVGroup ? .ORG
@ 61
https://eztv.it/forum/11061/eztv-ssl-how-to/
some people amaze me … others don’t!
cheers from canada
HOW IS THiS PIRACY??? It is shown freely on a tv network. It should be free for everyone to distribute!
LMAO…piracy! Piracy is using a 1000 dollar photoshop program for free…not sharing tv shows!
I LOVE EZTV!!!!!!
Generally Spanish TV (canal plus) is pretty good at keeping current on TV shows (airing flashforward tonight) but there are a lot of shows that they don’t carry like The Amazing Race, just love that show.
So I download to get the series I can’t find anywhere else or to catch ones I missed.
I second the complaint that you can’t get documentaries anywhere!!!!!!
Some shorter series like Mental are highly educative in terms of language in use… they provide good material for my bussiness english students. Also cable TV here is limited to 720p and “I kid you not” STEREO. No digital sound leaves any cablebox in Brazil!!
Studios are really thinking too long. When it comes to a movie, I prefer to wait for a good HDTVRip. As for TV-Shows I stick to PirateBay and KickassTorrents search for downloading it as fast as I can!
@22
Same thing in Poland (finally the country develops ;D).
We have:
a 1 yr delay in House (season 5 is being aired from sept. and in state tv!),
a 1,5 yr in Dexter (season 2 aired in spring ‘09).
Battlestar – not worth to mention – just season 1 in 2008 (cylons must run the tv companies here) >:P
Californication – about 1 – 1,5 year delay.
Don’t know ’bout the others.
@35
Seed mate, seeeeeeeeeed! ;)
@4
$5 @ ep = $100-130 a season. BD 1080p is only $70.00 a season (What I have seen so far, it might be higher for some shows)
@28
$2 an episode to watch on demand where you don’t even get to keep it? WoW.
@27
Yeh Battlestargate Universica is very cool! ;)
/endsarcasm
@49 (matt)
You are very close. Both the networks and studios demand the contracts. The studios demand a high premium for first-runs. The US networks like NBC and SciFi pay more if they can be the first and only exclusive broadcaster of the show. So the studios wait 1-6 months before releasing them at a lower premium for first-runs to the UK or other countries.
A lot of other countries Cable or TV don’t want to pay that ultra high first-run studio price. So they wait until syndication. Ah syndication, That must happen in the US first (from what I’ve seen) so that is 1-2 years away from the air date (got to protect DVD sales!), then 1 year or so after that to be available for other countries.
All in all a big big annoyance for fans in other countries.
@53 (lverona)
They don’t stream outside the US because of network contracts. They could stream once the show had a first-run in that country (like the UK) but then they would have to have an entire UK unit devoted to selling advertising, managing local UK servers for optimal streaming, etc etc etc etc.
Because Hulu is only a test for the networks / studios. They want to see how it goes before rolling it out globally. Of course we know how long it takes studios and networks to decide to do anything so who knows what they think of it.
As you suggest they could have PPS sites, but that would violate the contracts they have with the networks or the studios. So that will not happen. And it would not be what the people want (If they pay they want to own it)
@78 (How retarded?) and others …
It depends upon what country you are in. In the US you have the right under fair use to time-shift any show on cable or regular TV. That does not mean keep a copy., only to be able to watch it once at a later time. Anything else would not be allowed. Yes I think it is stupid, but it is the way the laws were wrote…. Idiot governments.
The Future is here! …
Everyone puts forward their thoughts on how to solve the problem. I’ve not heard one that would appeal to everyone.
Like the Music and Movies the industries are trying to fit a round peg into a square hold. The landscape has changed and they want what they want.
I’ve said this a ton of times to many people over the years, just never here. Why are they working so hard to remove everything from the net and locking it all down? what do they want? Looking into the mindset of the Studios we can get an idea and actually a Studio exec a few years ago hinted at this. Imagine if you will no networks, no TV stations, no nothing just a wire to your TV. Anything you want to watch you can 24/7 from TV shows to Movies to Music etc. Each time you “click” you pay. No matter what it is you want you pay and everything is in the cloud so you own nothing. Well at every turn we have stopped them. From Napster to BitTorrent to Showing them we want to own our content.
Protecting the Guilty…
At this moment that Studio exec was right about one thing. Networks, Cable, IPTV and OTA are all outdated. Why do we need them? Oh that’s right more businesses gobbling up cash we cannot allow to go away. Again propping up outdated business models and actually even businesses!
The Fix is in…
If, using the current network technology, the Studios setup a Private BitTorrent site. Charge $60.00 a month for access to it and you can download what TV Shows you want, DRM-free, anywhere in the world, and you own that copy. You could even do P2P streaming of Sports broadcasts! Hey why not charge $100.00 a month and add movies to that? People pay that in Cable bills globally, this way more of the money goes to the shows you love not to Network or Cable cos pockets.
They also have a very low distribution cost because of P2P no high high bandwidth costs like Hulu.
My Fav Show Is GONE!!!!!!
90% of the time the networks are the ones who cancel the shows, not the Studios. Bad ratings, low advertising revenue for that show, a new show that costs less are all among the factors in deciding on the fate of a show. If the networks were gone it would alter the landscaped enough that your favorite show would stand a better chance of being kept being produced.
Are you smarter than a moron!!!!
Reality TV has risen in popularity with networks as the costs of these shows are so low they can generate huge returns. So more and more get made and shoved down our throats. I think they would start to lose popularity, as budgets got bigger for TV shows, better and better series would emerge to replace regurgitated Reality TV.
So what do you think?
/endrant
If the companies are worried about revenue outside of the country its aired, stick some advertising on it. I dont care.
I get some shows, because the wait it to long. In a world where information is instant, so should shows, movies etc.
I feel it necessary to thank Torrent freak.com for exposing most/all torrent sites to any and all anti-piracy outfits. thanks Torrentfreak what would we do with out you.
Streaming is all good but what about the poor souls stuck on dialup thanks to a lazy incumbent telco?
Down-under is the dark ages for internet (middle-earth anyone).
Having friends with broadband that can download shows for you, or sharing at LANs is a life saver, and I wouldn’t even know about some TV shows wihtout broadband.
New Zealand only just started airing season 1 of Eureka about a year ago, but I have all three seasons. :D
No Dexter not Dexter’s Lab. it’s one of the best drama on TV ever.
it is impossible to go only legal in China, then you only get what the communist dictators allow, a Cable service where CNN is cut, if there is even a mention of democracy or human rights.
thank God for P2P and VPN’s
I cant post this enough, spread it around. go leave your signature:
http://www.copyrightalliance.org/letter/ dont leave your real name but get your few words in atleast. Let your voice be heard to the Obama too.
# 12
“I don’t even have cable or satellite anymore. I just download and watch TV shows at MY convenience. In addition, I do so completely WITHOUT any commercial interruptions.
You see, this is what people want. They want to watch what they want, when they want, as often as they want. Customers don’t like being told what to do or not to do.”
Seconded!
I don’t even have a tv anymore, In Norway you have to pay a fee to the state tv-channel just for owning a tv that receives broadcasts. I’m done with people charging money for stuff i don’t watch and for cable/satelite packages i don’t fully use, but have to get in order to get the one channel i like.
The only reason to have a TV is to connect it to your PC and play all your downloaded torrents when you want without adverts. No satelite, no cable and no antenna! Only Torrents! No big corporations telling me what, when and how to do things. I’m not a bloody communist.
Keep downloading torrents!
I feel bad for pirating movies and music, but not for pirating TV shows. People watch them for free, I’d be happy to download an HQ video file with commercials if they’d put it up for download, but I’m not waiting 12 (I kid you not) months to watch an episode on my TV here in Europe.
Funny fact: TV shows delay 1year to mycountry (only if your lucky) Breaking bad season 1 starting this month
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