TV Industry Using Piracy As A Measure Of Success

mrspin writes "Last100 has an interesting post from Guinevere Orvis, a web producer who works in the broadcast industry, who describes the way in which 'unofficial' but sanctioned BitTorrent leaks are being used as a measurement of a TV show's likely success. Orvis writes: 'Broadcasters aren't posting their shows directly on PirateBay yet, but they are talking informally and giving copies of shows to a friend of a friend who is unaffiliated with the company to make a torrent ... it's partially an experiment, but the hope is that distribution of content this way will lead to new viewers that wouldn't have been reached through traditional marketing means.'"

Leaked pilots

[hansamurai]

Many new shows this year were leaked weeks and months before their pilot aired, undoubtedly creating early talk about the shows that they wouldn't get otherwise.

I watched a few and they helped me make decisions, half of the Geico Cavemen pilot was enough forever, and the Sarah Connor Chronicles pilot renewed my interest in the Terminator series and I'm totally pumped for the show this January or February.

Re:Where are these new tv shows?

[orclevegam]

Well, there are some, just look at the sort of things that popup on youtube from time to time. Every now and then there will be something independent that makes a splash on the internet, but there are a number of barriers to mass popularity. The most important is probably one of advertising. Without at the very minimum a central channel or resource to promote the show people simple won't know about it. Relying entirely on word of mouth a show can still be popular, but it won't get the kinds of numbers most mainstream cable shows can pull in. The second smaller hurdle is one of quality. It still takes some money and talent to produce a good show, and results are all over the board for most of the independents that are running on shoestring budgets.

sicko

[hajus]

I remember many people thought Michael Moore's "Sicko" movie was released on BitTorrent on purpose.

Re:Makes Sense...

[DragonWriter]

Which, I suspect, is why the best shows on the air (my personal vote is for "The Wire" and "Dexter") have been HBO/showcase et. al., 1 hour timeslot really means basically 1 hour that way.

1 hour slots on HBO/Showtime tend to have less than one hour of show in them, by several minutes, though its not as far short of the full hour as on commercial networks. And the filler is in institials at the ends of the time slot, rather than interruptions in the flow of the show.

Re:would we be better off without TV ads?

[Kalriath]

Actually, what you're doing is illegal. After reading your Copyright Law, it expressly permits private copying of sound recordings only, so downloading TV and movies off BitTorrent could still get you in a whole lot of trouble.

Reference: your own damn law [justice.gc.ca]

Re:Makes Sense...

[finiteSet]

Where is the uncompressed stream?

Should be accessible via a skinny icon that reads "players/1.4mb" to the right of "Listen Live" (it looks like the "playlist" img). Not sure why they didn't just include it in the list with the other stream options.