The show normally runs one week after its premiere on BBC

Aug 29, 2012 13:21 GMT  ·  By

Piracy is a popular and common topic. There are extremists on either side of the debate, but most people are somewhere in the middle, i.e. they know pirating something is "wrong" but they do it anyway for various reasons, being a lousy cheapskate not even being in the top three.

The biggest cause, no matter what some people will tell you, is availability. That is, a show people want to watch is not airing on TV where they live, or it's not on DVD yet, or it's not available on Netflix or via other streaming platforms.

It seems that, finally, at least some companies are starting to realize this. Australia has always had it bad when it comes to media. Movies come out late, games come out late or not at all, shows are delayed and so on.

This may have made sense 50 years ago, but it doesn't now. Game of Thrones was the most pirated TV show of last year because of lack of availability. One of the places where it was pirated the most was Australia where the show aired, inexplicably, one week after it aired in the US.

You can imagine that fans eagerly awaiting a new episode weren't content to sit and wait while the rest of the world was watching and discussing the new episode.

Game of Thrones is hardly the only example. Doctor Who, the popular BBC series, airs in the UK on a Sunday. But because, by the time it airs, it's already Monday night in Australia, ABC, the local station that airs the show waits for the best possible time slot in terms of advertising which is the next Sunday.

Doctor Who normally attracts a geekier audience than most shows do, outside of the UK that is, so it's obvious that fans won't wait a week just so that the TV station can maximize ad revenue.

Thankfully, ABC got the message and will be making the show available as soon as it airs in the UK, at 5.10 am Monday morning in Australia. On TV, the show will still air a week later, but eager fans can watch it legally online as soon as it becomes available.