Watching TV Shows on the net - Scifi.com to offer the first episode of Galactica for free online

26.02.2005 - 02:17 / filled under default

Usually I don't reblog things I wrote on my German blog, but this one is something I would like to hear your opinions on my speculation.

Scifi.com has always been a very clever channel from my perspective and now they go a step further. eclecticism writes:

This is incredibly cool: The Sci-Fi Channel has posted the first episode of Battlestar Galactica season one (not the miniseries that’s currently available on DVD, but the currently-running TV series) on their website, free, uncut, and without commercials.

Just go to the Battlestar Galactica site and click on the banner at the top of the page. You’ll need RealPlayer, unfortunately, but that’s the only downside I can see.

You will get the first episode and some deleted scenes.

Which is great if you would like to take a peak - but from my point of view, there is MUCH more behind it. I think they are testing if the world is a possible market.

To understand my excitement, please remember I am sitting in Germany, Europe.

The country where everything in television is dubbed. We don't have Tivo. We don't have all the shows - we only get them years later if they are picked up by a channel. My most loved TV Show West Wing will probably never appear on German screens (on the other hand, the synchronisation would suck anyway). The only way to get the shows is buy DVDs, which also have to be the correct region code - and therefor have to appear in Region 2 ...

But that is so 20th century. I am talking to people all over the planet, timezones being the biggest problem. We want TV shows, and 'we' means 'the world', not only the U.S. So if a channel takes his own productin and offers the first episode for free, this speaks to me as:

Would you like to watch the show via internet? Would you pay for it?

And my answer is YES. Thank you for expanding your market worldwide.
The rest is to be negotiated. Your take on this?

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Comments

comments (3) :

I ended up talking about this in the comments to a later post, when I started inquiring about how to download the current episodes:

> As it is, I’d gladly pay a few dollars per episode to
> download high-quality versions of this show (and,
> theoretically, other shows that I might be interested in in
> the future), much like I currently do with music from the
> iTMS (with the caveat that I’d expect any DRM to be no
> more restrictive than what the iTMS uses). Assuming the
> show continues its current level of quality (which, from
> what I’ve read, it does), I’ll also quite happily plunk down
> the money for the eventual DVD release.

http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticis..

Whether or not they'll actually go to that step is a big question right now, but I'd be _thrilled_ if they did.
Michael Hanscom 26.02.2005 - 04:05
You would not be the only one. Cooperated with big distributed networks, they would discover fans all over the globe. And to be honest: I would not mind cleverly made advertisement.
Nicole Simon 26.02.2005 - 20:16
TV show
John 22.08.2005 - 12:25