… at least, if the TV networks have anything to do with it.
You see, illegal downloading of TV episodes affects TV Networks because they have no viewers to show the ads to.
Now, if you take a popular TV show, like, uhh, Prison Break, off the timeslot it is in, and don’t show it, and instead, put something like, heh, the National Press Club in its timeslot, do you really think the TV network, which is generally funded by advertisers dollars, will reach the same target audience, and therefore have a nice dollar value on that timeslot, due to having a high number of viewers?
I don’t think so.
On the other hand, if you put Prison Break on, in say, Midday on Wednesday, you might expect the number of people reducing their workdays to exclude Wednesday, so they can watch it, or, the more likely, people will program their VCRs, TiVo’s and DVD Recorders to record the TV show instead, and skip the ads by fast forward or crop.
And beside that point alone, if you show something in NSW before you show it in QLD due to a time delay, like showing in QLD on Tues, and NSW on Saturday, do you expect people to be waiting patiently for the Prison Break dose, or do you think they are more likely to, instead, ask their friend in QLD to record and mail it for them?
Or, in the real world case, where TV shows are actually shown months ahead in the US, for example, Prison Break is expected to reach Season 3 in the USA very soon.
Australia is still finishing up on Season 2.
So, of course, if you can get something sooner (months sooner), by using a internet connection, and .. well, similar argument, people could not be torrenting it, and instead, get their friends to express post it over, and still have it here before the networks get the show back up again.
The issue for many is, we want to see the rest of the story unfolding.
The networks, until recently, have ignored the issue, believing the downloaders aren’t placing too much of a dint in the viewing numbers, and therefore can maintain the same dollars, even with piracy.
Of course, this seems to be changing rapidly, with a few networks keen to instead, offer viewing with the ads in tact, at, or around the same time as US showing.
This is great news, we no longer need high speed internet connections with fatter uploads, as the networks are going to start syncing to USA’s networks (not 100%, but of course, in a manner that is reasonable).
So, this should be great news for those who might be mailing Video cassettes from the USA to Australia with titles like “Family Home Video”, and the like.
It might have a follow on effect on to broadband services, with no need for the extra data due to the TV shows starting to align, I predict bandwidth demands might decrease for some to many users, as the TV networks will do the downloading for you.
ISPs might no longer have a need to have higher priced services for heavy users, as the contention ratio for many ISPs is likely to change. Prison Break, Lost and Heroes being very popular TV episodes by world standards, I do think that if the TV networks aligned to a more reasonable (in 24 hours) time slot, the users torrenting the episodes would decline, and therefore, the load on ISPs will reduce significantly, and while the short term, not all users would reduce their quotas, many will reduce over the longer term, as the quota becomes not as necessary.
That would mean short term, higher profits, less stress on the links means that they can downsize. Long term, lower revenue, and therefore lower profits.
That is all assuming the networks sync up more TV episodes, like animated Family Guy and American Dad, which no doubt do still attract a fair bit of P2P users.
TV is it really the problem and the profit for ISPs?
Enjoy!