TV shows will debut in international territories nearer to their US premiere date.

Nothing seems to be safe from entertainment content thieves who now are causing even the international TV sector some major headaches.

Broadcasters are increasingly irked that expensive Hollywood TV shows are being downloaded off the Internet and exploited by pirates long before their scheduled broadcast in their territories.

Piracy has forced the film sector to close the window between domestic US and international debuts. Now the same thing is happening on the TV front. The debut in Australia of the CBS drama Jericho within hours of its US bow a couple of weeks ago likely will pave the way for more "day-and-date" launches in foreign territories.

In fact, British broadcaster Sky One recently refined its deal with News Corp. sibling 20th Century Fox Television to air the next season of 24 within a week of its US broadcast. Research has identified 24 as the single most illegally viewed TV program on the Internet in the UK.

"It's so heavily serialized that it's addictive," says David Smyth, Sky One's head of acquisitions. "When you are finished watching one episode, the only thing you want to do is watch another."

Added Fox executive Marion Edwards, "The feeling is that if you can tell somebody you can watch it legally within a week, rather than choose to watch it illegally, that people will respond."

edit: article from tv.com

Good to see that they are finally understanding, there is still a long way to go though. For example, Sopranos 6th season only just started on channel 9, whereas HBO are about to start showing the 7th season early next year.

I think the only shows to have a small delay time to get here are survivor and this jericho. Also what the hell is jericho and is it worth watching?

yes, about time

again the internets is win!

Absolutely fantastic news.

About time they actually took notice that there is a demand... 1 week though I beleive is still too long.

If its not a same day release most ppl will still be downloading it I reckon.


Theres still tons of awesome shows (entourage is one) that don't even get shown here in aus so its not going to reduce tv ep piracy by that much.


I reckon they should embrace the technology and make the eps available from the channels official website for download once they hit their release date. That way if you miss an ep its there for when YOU want to watch it.

The argument will be that that will kill DVD set sales etc, but really IMO the people downloading them would be the same ones that would just illegally download them rather than buy a DVD set.
You are not going to defeat this kind of piracy, may well make use of the technology we have I say.

Perhaps streamable eps if not just straight downloads? Obviously not gonna stop the ppl who know what they are doing but most of the general public.

Then again oz broadband deals sucks balls so thatd really have to change to make full usage of it... and thats just depressing :(

last edited by rubba-chikin at 16:51:46 10/Oct/06

entourage is on foxtel

Bout f***ing time.

Now, what about TV programs that don't even make it to Australia at all?
Should we be called 'dirty pirates' for downloading TV eps and watching them if they don't even (or never will) air here or not available on DVD?

What other choice are they leaving people with?

It really is about time they got their heads out of their c***s.

Oh and Foxtel/ all paytv in Aus is still absolutely horses***. Had it for years and years and it was a waste of time, effort and money to even have.

TV eps on demand over the net = win.
I would prefer to pay for a subscription to/on the net that lets me download any TV ep etc. I want, WHEN I want (like a paytv subscription)that didn't contribute to my Download cap (acuse Aus broadband is s***).
THAT would be worth it.

last edited by Loki at 16:55:52 10/Oct/06

Hrm foxtel eh I did not know that, that was a good decision on their part :)

there is still a long way to go though. For example, Sopranos 6th season only just started on channel 9, whereas HBO are about to start showing the 7th season early next year.

The sopranos isnt a really good example as 9 buried it due to low ratings, even if/when stations start showing stuff within a week of u.s. release, low ratings will still get the show axed.

1 week though I beleive is still too long.

I wouldnt think it would be for most people, unless it was a HBO type show where you know Aus tv will cut it to shreds, then yeah a d/l would still be preferable.

Probably cause the latest sopranos season was the s***test yet.

This is about time. It still won't stop some shows from being pirated as not everything is shown here.

Alias for example has finished in the US after 5 seasons and no-one has even confirmed that they are showing the last season here. Not good to show everything except the final season of a show to encourage viewers to remain loyal and legal.

PIRATE SPOOT

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis/images/pirate.jpg

parabol wins thread.

Alias for example has finished in the US after 5 seasons and no-one has even confirmed that they are showing the last season here.

Wouldnt surprise me if they never did, alias dropped off towards the end, even the u.s. networks pretty much killed it, only did 17 episodes in the final season rather than the usual 22ish.

But thats another reason for d/ling shows that simultaneous releases wont fix.. when a show becomes less popular, or a tv station decides to dick it around (hey lets alternate repeats to stretch out the season! great idea!!!11!#@).

I would consider paying a 'nominal' fee to download tv eps 'as they air' in the states, provided they are decent quality - they need some of the 'scene' cappers to go to work for the tv stations....

They either go down a video on deman style delivery playform OR they f***ing well air shows GLOBALLY at the same time, mean people won't need to download s*** because they are up to date, although personally the no ads thing rocks :p

It's about bloody time. Channel 9 axed gilmore girls halfway through a season, now that season is out on DVD before it's even been on free to air TV over here. No wonder people download tv shows, the release dates are stupid. I WANT MY GILMORE GIRLS

It's about bloody time. Channel 9 axed gilmore girls halfway through a season

Please get off my internet.

no, get off ALL out internets!!!

you are weird whoop

p.s. hi

Someone is learning, light bulbs on now.

great news if you enjoy watching crappy comericals during shows.
ill keep to downloading em thanks.

Awesome news!
I have no problem at all paying say a monthly fee to watch eps as they appear or alternatively, a pay per view option ~ so long as it wasn't priced like some EA "expansion pack"...

great news if you enjoy watching crappy comericals during shows.

PVR them then, digital tv is higher quality than d/led stuff.

unless you download the hd rips

Which will be lower quality than the hd source.

there are 1080i or p or whatever the f***en format is, rips out there now...


3.5gb an episode is a little excessive though....

Not really a "rip" if its the full stream is it?

Most big shows are available in .ts (raw) or x264 (slightly compressed) from 720p sources within hours of the show airing.. i.e. Right now you can already get most of this afternoon's shows in 720p and yesterday's in 1080i.

I found out last week that Jericho was airing here effectively same day as US, so if foxtel here in the ACT showed channel ten i'd definitely cap it off the TV rather than downloading it.

Jericho seems to be good. Pilot looked interesting, ep2 sucked, but ep3 picked up and it'll be worth sticking with for the moment anyway.

jericho works on a tv formula where it reveals a littl bit and opens a whole heap of questions, then teh next ep it answers alot of those questions and reveals a little bit more. on top of that it has a mythology style storyline that flows underneath it, this is an interesting way to tell a story like jericho since mythology eps cant be singled out aka x-files style and the ask a question answer a question style is more suited to shows like lost. the benefit of them adding it all together is that every ep you will learn something unexplained in the last ep and you will feel that you are getting more closer to the big answers every time you watch it.

the method a tv show is written is one of the main reasons i will watch it, thus i rate jericho high up there cause it has a great flow and a great way of delivery a story. and post apocolyptic stuff is like the best s*** ever, aka mad max/fallout

I would definately pay for tv shows if it were easy to download, fast and fairly cost effective. And not counting toward my download limit would be a bonus!

jericho is L A M E. I mean FFS, there's been how many nukes land in the US and other countries and these people are standing around having a communal BBQ. Gawd, could it get any further removed from reality? Oh, apart from the whole disassembling a black box flight recorder with a toothpick and some stickytape, playing it on the local school reel audio player ONLY TO FIND THAT HER BOYFRIEND's PLANE HAS MIRACULOUSLY LANDED IN A FIELD 5 MINS FROM JERICHO WHEN HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO THE CAYMAN ISLANDS!?!?11!

Meet a man who's been hiccuping for 20 years! ... hic *kill me* hic *kill me* ...

Nice example with Jericho, which had a pre-air version leaked before it was on TV.

Not sure if you fellas are aware (or if it is even possible to access with an Aussie IP address), but most major US networks are putting their prime time shows up on their sites the minute after they finish airing on the East coast.

Yeah I know, streaming quality < HR HDTV XviD, but still - this is a direct response to TV show downloading..

Try for yourself at abc.com, cbs.com, nbc.com, fox.com etc, etc..

sup creepster

G'day Jim! Nice avatar.

Just tried the ABC site and it only allows people in the US to watch the shows. And you have to watch it in a postage stamp sized screen anyway so bugger that. That reminds me of all the movie trailers when it says to pick from small, medium or large. You pick large and it's this tiny little piss-ant screen. LOL. How "small" is small then?

Anyway, back to the downloading thingy. I'd still d/l the shows even if they aired a day after the US simply for convenience and having no ads. If there was something like $1 an ep and it was high quality and able to copy to the HDD than I'd pay.

Hmm..

I wouldn't exactly call that postage-stamp-sized...

It's about the same rez as any EZTV or LOL type release. The quality is better than average (well above a YouTube rip).

The service currently offered by the US networks is a testing of the waters. They have had marginal success with iTunes, but now they're trying faster, more effective delivery methods. Internet downloads aren't as much a problem here actually (more a problem for UK, Australia etc.) - the real revenue killer are DVRs and Tivos.

Incidentally, afl.com.au got the s***s with sites pointing to torrents of full games and content...so much so that next year, they're offering downloadble versions of the games direct from their site. Another "the internet is win" story for people out there, far from home..

As far as groups like Fox, CBS etc offing streaming etc, this has never appealed to me, mostly because of the bandwidth problems in Australia. Considering that my most-used site is now YouTube, I'm finding 60GB a month just isn't cutting it anymore.
Because we have three people at home which watch shows, the ability to choose when you watch them is a problem - streaming stuff I obviously can't watch, say, on the train, or when I go away.
Plus there's the problem that my Optus cable connection can't handle realtime streaming anyway.

With paid downloads, the problem will be that the networks will try to get greedy. $2/ep is too much for a 22 ep series - you end up paying $44 for a average quality copy when the DVDs would be not much more. If I'm going to pay $44/season, I want a discount for when I buy the DVDs.

Crystal ball gazing:

In light of Google's acquisition of YouTube, and Google/YouTube's ties with major media publishers, stay tuned for - YouTube Premium or YouTube Plus.

YouTube Premium/Plus is a subscription-based service - for a small charge, you have instant, ondemand access to high-quality streaming video of your favourite television shows, movies, music videos, plus plenty of behind-the-scenes, bloopers and other content you won't see on TV!

(At which point, the tv networks will start to end their current "all you can eat" offerings of tv shows, switching higher-quality content to this new system)

Sounds good.

you sound like a stock analyst on cnbc

Sounds like what google video is trying to do... oh wait.

I just tried watching ABC's Ugly Betty through my US based webproxy. Works great. The issue i have is i don't watch TV shows on my pc, i download them and watch them on my tv through my xbox.

CBS just brought up the 'inner tube' screen with no video, but it might be my adblocking causing that.

NBC works too, Fox doesn't.

last edited by natslovR at 16:31:58 11/Oct/06

you sound like a stock analyst on cnbc

I've been living in Silicon Valley too long. :/