Was the New Dr. Who Leaked on Purpose?

Static-MT writes "The pilot episode of the BBC's highly anticipated new Doctor Who series may have been intentionally leaked onto file-sharing networks to generate buzz, a source who instructed the network on viral advertising told Wired News."

So whats wrong with this?

[oskard]

Well if its legal, meaning, the owners of the video purposely used this as advertisting, then who cares? Its a good idea if you ask me. Should be 'Distributed' via file sharing networks, not leaked :)

Worked for me

[hirschma]

Downloaded it, watched it, and felt that they had captured enough of the original that I want more. I hope that the Beeb does the right thing for those of us across the pond (USA).

Perfect copy

[bazim2]

It was the best looking AVI I've ever seen. All the credits were there and all the introduction with no slight cut-off near the end. It was leaked.

Re:So whats wrong with this?

[jrumney]

Well if its legal, meaning, the owners of the video purposely used this as advertisting, then who cares?

People in the UK whose TV license funded this stunt, perhaps.

Leaked shows and buzz

[wronski]

I dont know if the leaking was intentional or not, but if the show is any good it will probably help the ratings. Battlestar Galactica came out first in the UK, and probably became the single most Bittorrented tv show before it aired in the US, to excelent ratings. The creator of BSG asked fans *not* to download the show, because he feared people who downloaded it wouldnt bother to watch it on TV. What really happened is, the show is excelent, and the buzz generated by all the early viewing probably helped the ratings a lot. In Brazil BSG started airing this month, and a lot of people who wouldnt otherwise even know it existed are tuning in to a semi-obscure cable channel because of early viewing.

Of course, if a show is crap P2P will probably hurt the ratings.

Re:So whats wrong with this?

[possible]

Well if its legal, meaning, the owners of the video purposely used this as advertisting, then who cares? Its a good idea if you ask me. Should be 'Distributed' via file sharing networks, not leaked :)

If a media companies are intentionally (clandestinely) leaking their products onto p2p networks, then it's hypocritical of them to beg the government to shut down p2p networks because they are hurting their business.

I wonder if the intentionally leaked material gets figured into the "total dollars lost to p2p piracy" figures that we keep reading.

Media companies don't want p2p networks to be shut down. What they really want is to OWN the p2p networks just as they own everything else.

I found out about the "leak" from BBC News.

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that the BBC website had no less than three [bbc.co.uk] news [bbc.co.uk] articles [bbc.co.uk] about the leak, I can't say that I'm surprised to hear that the BBC "leaked" the episode themselves.

Re:Maybe but...

[Albanach]

so you blow the "hook" to keep viewers coming back to the time slot next week.

That's not what Viral Marketing is about. The BBC broadcasts to 50 million folk. A few million of those are interested in Dr Who, but only a few thousand of those would ever spend the time adn effort to download the pilot and watch it. Those folk enjoy it - like most the folk on /. and talk about it to their friends. Other folk read about the leak in the papers which makes it all a bit cool. They ask their geeky friends who assure them it's good and they tune in.

The tiny number that would be downlaoding the file in the UK is insignificant when you measure viewer ratings for the popular shows in the millions. Viral amrketting is about using a small number of people to boost those millions. So far, at least on /. it seems to be working.

Re:So whats wrong with this?

[oskard]

Well we can't simply mark Dr. Who's creators and investors as the "Media companies" you speak of. Just because SOME media companies dislike p2p networks, doesn't mean these guys ever complained about it.

Who knows, maybe they have, but we should be sure first.

Also, theres always the possibility that the advertising firm or group that was in charge of giving this new show some hype, simply took some orders out of context and "did all that was necessary" to massively spread this avi file

Re:Maybe but...

[theManInTheYellowHat]

I don't think so. I would suspect that the people who download the file would be avid promoters of it, and who would do much more for it than against it, and they would also probably actually watch it again on TV (cause nothing else is on anyway).

Anyway there are lots of people who would not be interested in downloading this show (think dialup users who were original show fans) but would like to hear from people who have. I think that it is brilliant guerilla marketing.

I tried to use "who" as many times as I could....

I don't think so

[UES]

I can't think of any drama or comedy shows that had a very highly rated 1st episode, then a huge drop-off in the second.

Usually a large drop-off in ratings is caused by one of the following:

1. Cast changes (The Practice)
2. Genre Fatigue (Enterprise)
3. Timeslot follies (Futurama, Family Guy)
4. Jumping the Shark (Malcolm in the Middle, Will and Grace)
5. The thing everyone waited for happened (Cheers, Moonlighting, soon will happen to Lost and Desperate Hosuewives)

I would think that if the BBC wanted high ratings, the thing to do would be to get as many people as possible to see the 1st episode, then follow up with 2nd and 3rd episodes of extremely high quality. That seemed to work for Battlestar Galactica.

Having more and more people tune in each week is very desireable to TV programming people, much more so than a huge number of viewers initially due to curiosity, then a big fall-off because the show stinks and can't hold an audience.

Re:Worked for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I would happily pay a subscription fee to watch the BBC over the internet; US TV shows are crap.

Viral Advertiser Advertising

[suwain_2]

...a source who instructed the network on viral advertising told Wired News."

Did anyone read this and think that this story itself was "viral advertising" for "the source who instructed the network"?

very bad

[badxmaru]

1) This could be a very bad trend, if the MPAA and anti-piracy groups get their way. If the marketer doesn't do their due diligence and check with their law groups, then this "buzz" and viral marketing could get those who downloaded said video prosecuted for downloading something that was intentionally uploaded for marketing purposes. Downloading things such as fc3.x86.iso is safe because it's already known content. If i downloaded desperatehousewives.s1e21.avi, how would I know if this was a marketing release or not?

2) maybe pirate groups should create another meta tag for videos = screeners, telecines, marketing videos.

3) If it really was distributed on purpose, then there should have been a disclaimer, or some sort of "tag" at the end, a title page indicating that the full series would come up soon, with showtimes and the like. Otherwise, what's the point of the first episodes excepting to bring the viewers up to a point where they know the storyline will eventually be regardless?

4) The whole "quality of video" analysis doesn't sell me on the purposeful leak theory.

So if I share it...

[doormat]

and get sued by the MPAA or whoever, could I say I had the permission of the copyright holder since they (or an agent working directly for them) put the material on the intenet to begin with?

Re:I found out about the "leak" from BBC News.

[JJC]

It was even on the headlines of the Six O'Clock News. Seemed odd to me that they were so pissed off about the leak that they decided to announce it to millions of people.

Re:Make's sense...

[ZephyrXero]

If you make good media (music,movies,software,books,etc), most people will buy your stuff after they see that it's good. Since radio/tv do such a horrible job spreading good media these days, most of us look to alternative means, such as file sharing. I always "try before I buy" when it comes to new CD's for example... Continuing with that example, if you are making crappy music where only 1 or 2 songs are worth my time, I'm not gonna buy your crappy product. I know many of you have been burnt in the past from buying a CD because you liked a song or two you heard off of it, but hated the rest of the album. The same goes for all other forms of media too (*except maybe movies). Basically what I'm saying here is that "illegal" file sharing is a new radio/tv for a new generation and the only people who are going to be hurt by it are people making crappy products.

Re:Perfect copy

[SuperBanana]

It was the best looking AVI I've ever seen.

Clearly you haven't seen a good HDTV rip; it'll blow up 2x and still look very nice. Go grab one of the torrents of anHDTV rip of something like Enterprise.

Color/brightness/contrast was pretty poor, nevermind that the editing was atrocious; the title sequence wasn't sorted. If that was the finished product, no thank you. This looked like a copy ripped off the editor's desk, not something ready for airing. Close, but no cigar.

All the credits were there and all the introduction with no slight cut-off near the end.

Credits don't mean imply anything; if I was leaking an episode unofficially, I'd include the credits for people to know if rumors about who was in/working on the show were true. Nevermind that some serious fans (for example, anime fansubbers) will leave all the credits in to give credit where it is due, and it's almost sacrilege to remove them.

It was leaked.

No shit "it was leaked", the question is whether it "leaked" intentionally by BBC management. Pay attention.

I love how a wild-ass opinion and an obvious/oblivious statement netted you "4, Insightful". "Insightful" should mean you actually -thought- about what you said, and 4-5 means it should be something not OTTMCO (Obvious To The Most Casual Observer). Then again, many mods have trouble distinguishing between insightful, informative, etc, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.

The larger story

[artemis67]

I think it's a pretty fascinating story how people and media companies are using the internet to promote themselves in very sneaky ways.

* Movie sites like aintitcoolnews.com [aintitcoolnews.com] routinely get "reviews" from movie companies trying to promote their own works (case in point, the number of positive pre-screening reviews for Be Cool, a really awful film)

* Paris Hilton's sex video leaks to the internet. Ooops! It gives her career such a boost that a second one "accidentally" leaks.

* Music companies, the sworn enemies of P2P file sharing, recover a lot of marketing data by routinely monitoring P2P traffic as a gauge of market tastes and artist popularity.

* The Blair Witch Project was famously promoted by creating bogus info sites, detailing the "legend" of the Blair Witch.

* How many people promote their own websites or products by submitting a story to Slashdot that casually mentions their site in the writeup? Too many to count!

Bah

[Lord_Dweomer]

As someone in advertising, I have to say that it was pretty obvious a while ago that this was an intentional leak. What I'm absolutely shocked at though is that the agency doing the viral marketing for them is willing to say anything AT ALL about it.

Most of those companies are hesitant to even release their client roster for fear of giving things like this away. I hope the BBC bitches them out for this.

Re:Too bad it sucked...

[lambent]

The one where he always has to rescue his female accomplice from certain doom every single episode?

Re:Innacuracy

[PHAEDRU5]

You remind me of Macbeth, Act I, Scene III:

Knock, knock! Who's there, in the other devil's
name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could
swear in both the scales against either scale;
who committed treason enough for God's sake,
yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come
in, equivocator.

Try watching BBC in the UK without paying your license. If you push it far enough, men with guns will show up and escort you to gaol.

Sounds like givernment to me.

Re:Too bad it sucked...

[mzieg]

The female lead (unknow to us americans, so i won't call her by name) acted like the typical Doctor sidekick: confused, panicky, causing more trouble than she's worth.

Um, that's just wrong, dude. The closing lines were very clear:

Rose: You would have failed miserably without me.
Doctor: Yes, I would have.

The episode was named, scripted, and structured specifically to introduce Rose as one of the "active" companions (like Ace), rather than the old Victoria-style screamers.

Rose saved us all from mannequins, you ungrateful!

[michaeldot]

If it hadn't been for the gutsy Rose jumping onto the rope and doing a bit of gymnastics, Earth would've been absorbed into the Nestene consciousness and the plastic men would have continued their massacre.

"More trouble than she's worth." Ha!

I think Rose will turn out to be a great companion - inquisitive, quick learning, possibly just behind Leela in ballsiness.

Of course, Romana #2 (Lalla Ward [nndb.com]) can never be challenged for sheer lovability in my eyes!

(If only I'd been an evolutionary biologist, she might have be interested in me when she dumped Tom. Oh, and if I'd been about 20 years older of course.)