Hit shows plundered – National – smh.com.au

I think one of the key reasons in this article is due to the great delay in Australian (and I suppose the same in Britain) networks airing new episodes/seasons as highlighted in the second last paragraph of the article. In part it is due to the different ratings season in the U.S. verses that of Australia, but waiting 6 months to a year for new episodes is somewhat annoying for television viewers, especially when the Internet allows for the dissemination and discussion of shows, plots and so on much easier these days. So thus people resort to downloading shows to keep up with our U.S. counterparts… Of course this then negatively impacts upon our local markets/networks if downloaders don’t then watch the show when it airs on FTA. Ratings is important to the broadcasting networks. Less viewers = poorer ratings = later timeslot (maybe even shelved). Plus there is profitability of course of advertising revenue. Whilst a Tivo like service hasn’t yet taken of here (perhaps the closest is Foxtel’s iQ), I wonder what will become then. Already in the US, people start watching 15 mins after via their tivo, in order to be able to skip all the ads… what does such then hold?