TVSquad

Hey TV executives, it's me your good pal Jay Black. Maybe you remember me from my one man "Bring Back ALF" letter-writing campaign? If not, that's okay. I'm just happy that we're talking like this and not through Yvonne Strahovski's lawyers like last time.

As you can probably tell, I spend a lot of time thinking about you guys and your tough job of coming up with so many creative shows. I don't envy your having to sort through pile after pile of successful European reality shows trying to find one uncomplicated enough for American audiences. I don't know how you do it!

I'll be honest with you, I'm worried about the future of your industry. I know you're worried too. You think that if you don't act fast to counter all those people pirating your content that you'll wind up like your good buddies over in the music industry. I don't want that to happen to you, so that's why I'm writing this letter: TV, you can save yourself if you don't fight piracy, but rather embrace it.

And here I thought it was According to Jim. Who knew? Maybe this year.

Until then, NBC's Heroes is the number one most pirated TV show of 2007, according to a list compiled on TorrentFreak. Nearly 2.5 million illegal downloads were made of the super-hero program, with the BBC program Top Gear coming in second at about 1.2 million. Others on the list are Battlestar Galactica (706,000), 24 (524,000) and Scrubs (tenth on the list at 427,000 downloads).

Here's my question concerning all of this...why is this still illegal?

Millions of British Virgin Media customers have lost access to top programs including Lost, Battlestar Galactica, 24, and The Simpsons. On Thursday BSkyB pulled its channels from Virgin's cable television network as a result of a battle over content fees.

The Sky One channel on Virgin is one of the cable provider's most popular. So unless Virgin can work out deals to provide the same content to their subscribers on another channel, the longer the dispute continues the more angry customers they're going to have to deal with.

At this point, die-hard Simpsons fans are left with few choices. They can subscribe to BSkyB or turn to piracy. iTunes and most other online video stores that sell television episodes are only available to US customers.

[via TorrentFreak]

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the brains behind Skype and Kazaa, are preparing to launch the first global television network later this year. The new service, called Joost, has already garnered interest from Endemol TV (Fear Factor, Deal or No Deal and 1 Vs. 100), September Films (Beauty and the Geek, Bridezillas) and the Indy Racing League, all of which will be providing content, though what that content will be is unknown at the time.

The creators hope to provide entertainment for viewers using a format that will also allow content providers to keep their shows safe from piracy. The new venture already has several advertisers lined up, which is no doubt due to the popularity of both Skype and Kazaa.

Speaking as a viewer who isn't exactly tech-savvy, I have to say that the success of Joost will come down to how easy it is to use. I've said before that a large part of YouTube's success is that it's incredibly simple to find and watch videos. As long as Joost doesn't over-complicate things and actually provide worthwhile content, it might be worth checking out.

I'd imagine that, for most of you, I don't even really need to go into details on this one. Just reading the phrase 'video on the web' probably conjures plenty of your own experiences fighting with technology to get your dander up. Why? Why does it have to be so damned complicated to put a video file on the internet?

Now, part of my frustration with this comes from the fact that I'm one of 'those guys.' I loathe Windows. I could go on and on about the evils of Bill and the Gang, but that is probably a post for another site. It does bring up one of the most frustrating things we run into when we link to content from the various networks. Requirements to play. You need Windows XP, or Media Player 10, or Flash 6, or IE, or Quicktime, or to stand on your head and chant the namshub of Enki. Good grief, it doesn't need to be that hard.