A pretty controversial, daring statement by Mark Pesce over at Mindjack. October 18 was the day that British satellite broadcaster SkyOne ran the premiere episode of the new Battlestar Galactica. Since the average viewer of the Sci-Fi channel is younger and more tech-savvy than the typical TV viewer, the episode was available on the web via BitTorrent within hours.
That's just a brief summary of the two part piece. It gets really complicated from there. Pesce makes his point by covering not only BitTorrent, but also PVRs, piracy, global distribution, old and new economic models, and the future of television itself. (Part One is here, and part two is here.)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-15-2005 @ 5:00PM
chuck said...
it's actually three part. brilliant!
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6-15-2005 @ 8:43PM
Gnash said...
It was in fact Battlestar Galactica that first led me to Bittorrent.
A big fan of the mini-series, I was disappointed that it premiered in the UK which also had the benefit of being uncut.
The series is remarkable, and if you haven't seen it you surely should (as well as Firefly which is equally brilliant) if you get a chance.
On Pesce's comments - he expresses thoughtfully and intelligently an obvious shift in the way media will be presented in the near future. I think he also offers a potential mechanism that allows viral delivery as well as a supporting advertising message.
Another alternative are companies that stream content for fee, which I would also be willing to do if the price point was right (I would pay $2 / episode for a show I liked in HDTV quality if it meant I did not have to buy the DVD or pay for premium cable or satellite services). Though this does admittedly potentially take out the "middle man" ie broadcat networks.
It would take a lot of guts for any company to embrace the idea of downloadable shows w/ advertisting in the watermark area of the screen (bottom right) at this point. I do think it will definately happen in some form within 10 years though.
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6-16-2005 @ 4:50PM
Josh said...
Excellent article.
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